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[Scientists] have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest duty lies in submitting to it however it may jar against their inclinations.

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
Lying
Scientist
Science
Evidence
May
However
Nothing
Lies
Submitting
Believe
Highest
Inclinations
Duty
Jars
Respect
Inclination
Learned
Scientists

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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If the twentieth century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will be because there are among us men who walk in Priestley's footsteps....To all eternity, the sum of truth and right will have been increased by their means to all eternity, falsehoods and injustice will be the weaker because they have lived.
Thomas Huxley
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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!'
Thomas Huxley
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It is better to read a little and thoroughly than cram a crude undigested mass into my head, though it be great in quantity.
Thomas Huxley
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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.
Thomas Huxley
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Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.
Thomas Huxley
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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.
Thomas Huxley
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Deduction, which takes us from the general proposition to facts again-teaches us, if I may so say, to anticipate from the ticket what is inside the bundle.
Thomas Huxley
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The only people, scientific or other, who never make mistakes are those who do nothing.
Thomas Huxley
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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.
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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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'.
Thomas Huxley
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Whatever part of the animal fabric whatever series of muscles, whatever viscera might be selected for comparison the result would be the same the lower Apes and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla and the Man.
Thomas Huxley
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God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me.
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.
Thomas Huxley
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It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.
Thomas Huxley
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Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
Thomas Huxley
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The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.
Thomas Huxley
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My experience of the world is that things left to themselves don't get right.
Thomas Huxley
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Let us have sweet girl graduates by all means. They will be none the less sweet for a little wisdom and the golden hair will not curl less gracefully outside the head by reason of there being brains within.
Thomas Huxley
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The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.
Thomas Huxley