Quote

Every living creature commences its existence under a form different from, and simpler than, that which it eventually attains.

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
Form
Commences
Different
Attains
Every
Simpler
Creature
Eventually
Creatures
Existence
Living

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

Image
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Image
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
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
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
If the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom, it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with political, as they now deal with scientific questions.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Though under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that over-instruction may be worse.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady.
Thomas Huxley
Image
If the hypothesis of evolution is true, living matter must have arisen from non-living matter for by the hypothesis the condition of the globe was at one time such, that living matter could not have existed in it, life being entirely incompatible with the gaseous state.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Image
I have no faith, very little hope, and as much charity as I can afford.
Thomas Huxley
Image
If every man possessed everything he wanted, and no one had the power to interfere with such possession or if no man desired thatwhich could damage his fellow-man, justice would have no part to play in the universe.
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
Image
Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.
Thomas Huxley
Image
Tolerably early in life I discovered that one of the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, is for a man to go about unlabeled. The world regards such a person as the police do an unmuzzled dog.
Thomas Huxley
Image
The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable posession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?
Thomas Huxley
Image
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
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
The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.
Thomas Huxley