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I'd rather have an ape for an ancestor than a bishop.

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
Apes
Ancestor
Rather
Bishop
Bishops

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued.
Thomas Huxley
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The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.
Thomas Huxley
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It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.
Thomas Huxley
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Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.
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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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In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.
Thomas Huxley
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If individuality has no play, society does not advance if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.
Thomas Huxley
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Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.
Thomas Huxley
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I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Whitechapel is low.
Thomas Huxley
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Surely there is a time to submit to guidance and a time to take one's own way at all hazards.
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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.
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Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.
Thomas Huxley
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The birth of science was the death of superstition.
Thomas Huxley
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The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying.
Thomas Huxley
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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
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Genius as an explosive power beats gunpowder hollow and if knowledge, which should give that power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not small that the rocket will simply run amuck among friends and foes.
Thomas Huxley
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In matters of intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard for any other consideration.
Thomas Huxley
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The rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature.
Thomas Huxley
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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
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All truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified.
Thomas Huxley