Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

Inspirational Quotations 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

Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Patience, Perseverance, Persistence

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

Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may from a raw recruit, and its methods differ from those of common sense, only as the guardsman’s cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Common Sense, Science

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Power, Authority, Knowledge

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

Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Procrastination, Getting Going, Inaction, Decisions

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

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

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

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Danger, Knowledge

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 great tragedy of science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Science

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

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

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

This may not be the best of all possible worlds, but to say that it is the worst is mere petulant nonsense.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: World

The great end of life is not knowledge, but action.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Action, Procrastination, Getting Going, Knowledge, Inaction

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

Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Truth, Reason

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

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Science, Scientists

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

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

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

A man’s worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Difficulties

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

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

Books are the money of Literature, but only the counters of Science.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Reading, Books

It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Freedom, Right, Better

Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.
—Thomas Henry Huxley
Topics: Science