Quote

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.

Thomas Huxley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Experiment
Appeals
Observation
Experiments
Court
Ultimate
Authority
Rationality
Thinking
Appeal

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

Image
Whatever evil voices may rage, Science, secure among the powers that are eternal, will do her work and be blessed.
Thomas Huxley
Image
That which lies before the human race is a constant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to State of Nature, the State of Art of an organized polity in which, and by which, man may develop a worthy civilization
Thomas Huxley
Image
The doctrine of transmigrationÂ… was a means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the cosmos to man Â… none but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the grounds of inherent absurdity.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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.
Thomas Huxley
Image
The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Rome is the one great spiritual organisation which is able to resist and must, as a matter of life and death, the progress of science and modern civilization
Thomas Huxley
Image
The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Thomas Huxley
Image
There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued.
Thomas Huxley
Image
I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything...
Thomas Huxley
Image
In the world of letters, learning and knowledge are one, and books are the source of both whereas in science, as in life, learning and knowledge are distinct, and the study of things, and not of books, is the source of the latter.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.
Thomas Huxley
Image
. . . I fail to find a trace [in Protestantism] of any desire to set reason free. The most that can be discovered is a proposal to change masters. From being a slave of the papacy, the intellect was to become the serf of the Bible.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature.
Thomas Huxley
Image
No man is any the worse off because another acquires wealth by trade, or by the exercise of a profession on the contrary, he cannot have acquired his wealth except by benefiting others to the extent of what they considered to be its value.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Unfortunately, it is much easier to shut one's eyes to good than to evil. Pain and sorrow knock at our doors more loudly than pleasure and happiness and the prints of their heavy footsteps are less easily effaced.
Thomas Huxley
Image
For myself I say deliberately, it is better to have a millstone tied round the neck and be thrown into the sea than to share the enterprises of those to whom the world has turned, and will turn, because they minister to its weaknesses and cover up the awful realities which it shudders to look at.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption one sometimes meets with, that physics has one method, chemistry another, and biology a third.
Thomas Huxley
Image
People never will recollect that mere learning and mere cleverness are of next to no value in life, while energy and intellectual grip, the things that are inborn and cannot be taught, are everything.
Thomas Huxley
Image
If every man possessed everything he wanted, and no one had the power to interfere with such possession or if no man desired thatwhich could damage his fellow-man, justice would have no part to play in the universe.
Thomas Huxley