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No mistake is so commonly made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be bad because the arguments of its supporters are, to a great extent, nonsensical

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
Mistake
Commonly
Causes
Supporter
Arguments
Great
Extent
Made
Clever
People
Assuming
Argument
Nonsensical
Cause
Supporters

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Rome is the one great spiritual organisation which is able to resist and must, as a matter of life and death, the progress of science and modern civilization
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It is one of the most saddening things in life that, try as we may, we can never be certain of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain of making them unhappy.
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The foundation of all morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying to give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge.
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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.
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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.
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Of the few innocent pleasures left to men past middle life, the jamming of common sense down the throats of fools is perhaps the keenest.
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Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.
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And when you cannot prove that people are wrong, but only that they are absurd, the best course is to let them alone.
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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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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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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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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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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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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.
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Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.
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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.
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The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
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Whatever evil voices may rage, Science, secure among the powers that are eternal, will do her work and be blessed.
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In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.
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The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.
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