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It ought not to be unpleasant to say that which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so constantly is painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress of mankind in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word or of deed.

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
Quality
Painful
Obstacle
Word
Valuable
Deed
Religion
Constantly
Believes
Enough
Atheism
Qualities
Believe
Mankind
Obstacles
Progress
Deeds
Ought
Honestly
Disbelieves
Quite
Honesty
Unpleasant

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Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
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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.
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The rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature.
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History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.
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Trust a witness in all matters in which neither his self-interest, his passions, his prejudices, nor the love of the marvellous is strongly concerned. When they are involved, require corroborative evidence in exact proportion to the contravention of probability by the thing testified.
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Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.
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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.
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Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.
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The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
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In matters of intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard for any other consideration.
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No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.
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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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We live in the hope and faith that, by the advance of molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts and the manner in which they are put together.
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To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual affairs would be about as reasonable as to object to live one's life with due thought for the morrow because no man can be sure he will alive an hour hence.
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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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Creation,' in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this universe was not in existence, and that it made its appearance in six days (or instantaneously, if that is preferred), in consequence of the volition of some preexisting Being.
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I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything...
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Science reckons many prophets, but there is not even a promise of a Messiah.
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There is no absurdity in theology so great that you cannot parallel it by a greater absurdity in Nature.
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Veracity is the heart of morality.
Thomas Huxley