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The known is finite, the unknown infinite intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.

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
Every
Infinite
Finite
Something
Generations
Extent
Stand
Unknown
Illimitable
Land
Midst
Solidity
Known
Add
Reclaim
Business
Possession
Illuminating
Littles
Generation
Intellectually
Little
Ocean
Possessions

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Whitechapel is low.
Thomas Huxley
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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
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The known is finite, the unknown infinite spiritually we find ourselves on a tiny island in the middle of a boundless ocean of the inexplicable. It is our task, from generation to generation, to drain a small amount of additional land.
Thomas Huxley
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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
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Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium.
Thomas Huxley
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I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything especially as I am now so much occupied with theology but I don't see my way to your conclusion.
Thomas Huxley
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There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.
Thomas Huxley
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The very existence of society depends on the fact that every member of it tacitly admits he is not the exclusive possessor of himself, and that he admits the claim of the polity of which he forms a part, to act, to some extent, as his master.
Thomas Huxley
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In matters of intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard for any other consideration.
Thomas Huxley
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I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything...
Thomas Huxley
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The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
Thomas Huxley
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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.
Thomas Huxley
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I'd rather have an ape for an ancestor than a bishop.
Thomas Huxley
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It is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible.
Thomas Huxley
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Genius as an explosive power beats gunpowder hollow and if knowledge, which should give that power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not small that the rocket will simply run amuck among friends and foes.
Thomas Huxley
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I am content with nothing, restless and ambitious... and I despise myself for the vanity, which formed half the stimulus to my exertions. Oh would that I were one of those plodding wise fools who having once set their hand to the plough go on nothing doubting.
Thomas Huxley
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Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.
Thomas Huxley
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The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.
Thomas Huxley
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Science is simply common sense at its best.
Thomas Huxley
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Life is like walking along a crowded street--there always seem to be fewer obstacles to getting along on the opposite pavement--and yet, if one crosses over, matters are rarely mended.
Thomas Huxley