Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

Image
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.
Thomas Huxley
Image
It is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Image
Veracity is the heart of morality.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Image
Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff to any degree of fineness.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Oh devil! truth is better than much profit. I have searched over the grounds of my belief, and if wife and child and name and fame were all to be lost to me one after the other as the penalty, still I will not lie.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Image
We are prone to see what lies behind our eyes, rather than what apprears before them.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.
Thomas Huxley
Image
It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Image
Whatever evil voices may rage, Science, secure among the powers that are eternal, will do her work and be blessed.
Thomas Huxley
Image
The doctrine of transmigrationÂ… was a means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the cosmos to man Â… none but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the grounds of inherent absurdity.
Thomas Huxley
Image
The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
Thomas Huxley