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It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

Thomas Huxley

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Thomas Huxley
Age: 70 †
Born: 1825
Born: May 4
Died: 1895
Died: June 29
Anatomist
Anthropologist
Biologist
Carcinologist
Ichthyologist
Linguist
Naturalist
Paleontologist
Philosopher
Photographer
Physiologist
Lexington
Kentucky
T. H. Huxley
Huxley
Rational
Instinct
Grounds
Forgotten
Attempts
Belief
Instincts
Call
Irrational
Often
Justify
Beliefs
Extremely

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There is no sadder sight in the world than to see a beautiful theory killed by a brutal fact.
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Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.
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Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.
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And when you cannot prove that people are wrong, but only that they are absurd, the best course is to let them alone.
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Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
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No mistake is so commonly made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be bad because the arguments of its supporters are, to a great extent, nonsensical
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Surely it must be plain that an ingenious man could speculate without end on both sides, and find analogies for all his dreams. Nor does it help me to tell me that the aspirations of mankind
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Veracity is the heart of morality.
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The man who is all morality and intellect, although he may be good and even great, is, after all, only half a man.
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Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.
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If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had better turn to hand work it is an indication on Nature's part that she did not mean him to be a head worker.
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Whatever part of the animal fabric whatever series of muscles, whatever viscera might be selected for comparison the result would be the same the lower Apes and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla and the Man.
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I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission.
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Elohim was, in logical terminology, the genus of which ghosts, Chemosh, Dagon, Baal, and Jahveh were species. The Israelite believed Jahveh to be immeasurably superior to all other kinds of Elohim. The inscription on the Moabite stone shows that King Mesa held Chemosh to be, as unquestionably, the superior of Jahveh.
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A world of facts lies outside and beyond the world of words.
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Material advancement has its share in moral and intellectual progress. Becky Sharp's acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year has its applications to nations and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.
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The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes.
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Of the few innocent pleasures left to men past middle life, the jamming of common sense down the throats of fools is perhaps the keenest.
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