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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

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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
Life
Source
World
Learning
Study
Books
Knowledge
Distinct
Science
Whereas
Book
Latter
Things
Letters

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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To say that an idea is necessary is simply to affirm that we cannot conceive the contrary and the fact that we cannot conceive the contrary of any belief may be a presumption, but is certainly no proof, of its truth.
Thomas Huxley
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The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.
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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Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium.
Thomas Huxley
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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.
Thomas Huxley
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It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.
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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It is a popular delusion that the scientific enquirer is under an obligation not to go beyond generalisation of observed facts...but anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond the facts, rarely get as far.
Thomas Huxley
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Books are the money of Literature, but only the counters of Science.
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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People never will recollect that mere learning and mere cleverness are of next to no value in life, while energy and intellectual grip, the things that are inborn and cannot be taught, are everything.
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 sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors.
Thomas Huxley
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Genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow.
Thomas Huxley
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Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
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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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
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I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
Thomas Huxley
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We are prone to see what lies behind our eyes, rather than what apprears before them.
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