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

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.
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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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Every living creature commences its existence under a form different from, and simpler than, that which it eventually attains.
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Genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow.
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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.
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Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium.
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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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The more rapidly truth is spread among mankind the better it will be for them. Only let us be sure that it is the truth.
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There is assuredly no more effectual method of clearing up one's own mind on any subject than by talking it over, so to speak, with men of real power and grasp, who have considered it from a totally different point of view.
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The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all other woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write, and you have put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. But it is quite another thing to open the box.
Thomas Huxley
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Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature.
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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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It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews--Micah, Isaiah, and the rest--who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.
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The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable posession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?
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The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
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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
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What men of science want is only a fair day's wages for more than a fair day's work.
Thomas Huxley
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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
Thomas Huxley
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There is far too much of the feeding-bottle in education and young people ought to be supplied with good intellectual food and then left to help themselves.
Thomas Huxley
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Surely there is a time to submit to guidance and a time to take one's own way at all hazards.
Thomas Huxley