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Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a medium hired at a guinea a seance.

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
Atheism
Sweeper
Talk
Sweepers
Dies
Guinea
Better
Crossing
Live
Crossings
Made
Hired
Medium
Mediums
Twaddle

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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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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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
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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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Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature.
Thomas Huxley
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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.
Thomas Huxley
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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
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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
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I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?
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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History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.
Thomas Huxley
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The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.
Thomas Huxley
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Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
Thomas Huxley
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There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.
Thomas Huxley
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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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Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.
Thomas Huxley
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Not far from the invention of fire we must rank the invention of doubt.
Thomas Huxley
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There is no absurdity in theology so great that you cannot parallel it by a greater absurdity in Nature.
Thomas Huxley
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Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady.
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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No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.
Thomas Huxley