Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) was an English physiologist and zoologist. He is best remembered as the principal advocate of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Huxley also coined the term ‘agnostic’ to describe his own religious beliefs that knowledge rested on scientific reasoning and that certainty about the existence of God was unachievable.

Born in Ealing, Middlesex, Huxley received just two years of formal schooling. From age 10, he educated himself, doing well enough to gain admission to Charing Cross Hospital to study medicine. He graduated in 1845 and became a surgeon on HMS Rattlesnake. He quickly made his mark as a marine biologist and studied fossils, especially those of fishes and reptiles.

Huxley was the protagonist of evolutionary theory in the controversies that followed the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859.) His aggressive public support of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution earned him the nickname “Darwin’s bulldog.” He even participated in debates on Darwin’s behalf. When one challenger asked Huxley if he descended from apes on his grandfather’s side or his grandmother’s, he purportedly snapped, “If I would rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means and influence, and yet who employs those faculties for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion—I unquestionably affirm my preference for the Ape.”

One of the most eminent Victorian men of science, Huxley also made unsystematic forays into philosophy. He wrote on a wide array of topics, including science, religion, ethics, and politics. His notable writings include Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature (1863,) The Physical Basis of Life (1868,) and On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata (1874,) a monograph on David Hume (1879,) and the Romanes Lecture Ethics and Evolution (1893.)

Huxley was the grandfather of the philosopher Aldous Huxley, the Nobel-laureate physiologist and biophysicist Andrew Huxley, and the biologist Julian Huxley.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thomas Henry Huxley

Fact I know; and Law I know; but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind’s throwing?
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Necessity

Time, whose tooth gnaws away at everything else, is powerless against truth.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Time, Time Management, Truth

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Enthusiasm, Genius

My business is to teach my aspirations to confirm themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Aspirations

In the natural world ignorance is visited as sharply as willful disobedience; incapacity meets the same punishment as crime.—Nature’s discipline is not even a word and a blow and the blow first, but the blow without the word.—It is left for the sufferer to find out why the blow was given.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Ignorance

No delusion is greater than the notion that method and industry can make up for lack of mother-wit, either in science or in practical life.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Science

It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Superstition, Truth

I know of no department of natural science more likely to reward a man who goes into it thoroughly than anthropology. There is an immense deal to be done in the science pure and simple, and it is one of those branches of inquiry which brings one into contact with the great problems of humanity in every direction.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Science, Scientists

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself to 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 person’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson a person learn thoroughly.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Discipline, Education

No man is any the worse off because another acquires wealth by trade, or by the exercise of a profession; on the contrary, he cannot have acquired his wealth except by benefiting others to the extent of what they considered to be its value.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Wealth

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 Henry Huxley
Topics: Arguments

The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Morals

It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Right, Rightness

I care not what subject is taught if only it be taught well.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Education

My pet aphorism suffer fools gladly should be the guide of the Assistant Secretary, who, during the fortnight of his activity, has more little vanities and rivalries to smooth over and conciliate than other people meet with in a lifetime. Now you do not suffer fools gladly; on the contrary, you gladly make fools suffer. I do not say you are wrong; No tu quoque’; but that is where the danger of the explosion lies’; not in regard to the larger business of the Association.
—Thomas Henry Huxley

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Authority

There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Opinions, Opinion

Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Logic, Consequences, Action

All truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Common Sense, Common Sense

The world makes up for all its follies and injustices by being damnably sentimental.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Emotions

God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Facts

Nothing great in science has ever been done by men, whatever their powers, in whom the divine afflatus of the truth-seeker was wanting.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Truth

It does not matter how many tumbles you have in this life, so long as you do not get dirty when you tumble; it is only the people who have to stop to be washed and made clean, who must necessarily lose the race. And I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Patience, Failure

The medieval university looked backwards; it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge. The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Universities, Education, Colleges

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot: long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
—Thomas Henry Huxley

Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady, as distinguished from the veneered article which commonly goes by that name.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Man

Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Science

The chessboard is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call laws of nature.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Nature

We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Influence, Duty

Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff to any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends on what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat flour from peas cods, so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose data.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Mathematics

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *