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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?

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
Shadow
Atheism
Empty
Law
Fact
Facts
Throwing
Mind
Necessity
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More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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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.
Thomas Huxley
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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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No delusion is greater than the notion that method and industry can make up for lack of mother-wit, either in science or in practical life.
Thomas Huxley
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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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I doubt the fact, to begin with, but if it be so even, what is this but in grand words asking me to believe a thing because I like it.
Thomas Huxley
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There is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off.
Thomas Huxley
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Science is simply common sense at its best.
Thomas Huxley
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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.
Thomas Huxley
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The science, the art, the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern world have grown out of Greece and Rome-not by favour of, but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world were alike despicable.
Thomas Huxley
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The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon.
Thomas Huxley
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Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
Thomas Huxley
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I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
Thomas Huxley
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Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff to any degree of fineness.
Thomas Huxley
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There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics none in which there is more need of good pilotage and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.
Thomas Huxley
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I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission.
Thomas Huxley
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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.
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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If a man cannot see a church, it is preposterous to take his opinion about its altar-piece or painted window.
Thomas Huxley
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Only one absolute certainty is possible to man, namely that at any given moment the feeling which he has exists.
Thomas Huxley
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What would become of the garden if the gardener treated all the weeds and slugs and birds and trespassers as he would like to be treated, if he were in their place?
Thomas Huxley