Quote

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

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
Thought
Central
Ideas
Extremely
Firsts
Reflection
First
Master
Made
Masters
Stupid
Idea
Biographies
Science
Origin

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

Image
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.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Image
Life is like walking along a crowded street--there always seem to be fewer obstacles to getting along on the opposite pavement--and yet, if one crosses over, matters are rarely mended.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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.
Thomas Huxley
Image
I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything especially as I am now so much occupied with theology but I don't see my way to your conclusion.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
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
The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
Thomas Huxley
Image
If then, said I, the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessing great means and influence and yet who employs those faculties for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion-I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.
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
If individuality has no play, society does not advance if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.
Thomas Huxley
Image
For myself I say deliberately, it is better to have a millstone tied round the neck and be thrown into the sea than to share the enterprises of those to whom the world has turned, and will turn, because they minister to its weaknesses and cover up the awful realities which it shudders to look at.
Thomas Huxley
Image
History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.
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
The man who is all morality and intellect, although he may be good and even great, is, after all, only half a man.
Thomas Huxley
Image
In truth, the laboratory is the forecourt of the temple of philosophy, and whoso has not offered sacrifices and undergone purification there has little chance of admission into the sanctuary.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say that he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.
Thomas Huxley
Image
. . . I fail to find a trace [in Protestantism] of any desire to set reason free. The most that can be discovered is a proposal to change masters. From being a slave of the papacy, the intellect was to become the serf of the Bible.
Thomas Huxley
Image
The rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Ecclesiasticism in science is only unfaithfulness to truth
Thomas Huxley