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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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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
Small
Tiny
Spiritually
Known
Generation
Boundless
Find
Ocean
Finite
Infinite
Island
Generations
Islands
Drain
Amount
Unknown
Inexplicable
Land
Task
Drains
Middle
Tasks
Additional

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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It is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible.
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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.
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Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion!
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The only good that I can see in the demonstration of the truth of Spiritualism is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a medium hired at a guinea a séance.
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Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.
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It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors.
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Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature.
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Natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new morality.
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Fact I know and Law I know but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind's throwing?
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In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.
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Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium.
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I take it that the good of mankind means the attainment, by every man, of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow men
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My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin', was, 'How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!'
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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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It is not what we believe, but why we believe it. Moral responsibility lies in diligently weighing the evidence. We must actively doubt we have to scrutinize our views, not take them on trust. No virtue attached to blindly accepting orthodoxy, however 'venerable'.
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Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.
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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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Friendship involves many things but, above all the power of going outside oneself and appreciating what is noble and loving in another.
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Science is simply common sense at its best.
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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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