Thomas Huxley
Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley PC PRS FLSwas an English biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth4 May 1825
fire doubt invention
Not far from the invention of fire must rank the invention of doubt.
beautiful cat thinking
No one who has lived in the world as long as you & I have, can entertain the pious delusion that it is engineered upon principles of benevolence... the cosmos remains always beautiful and profoundly interesting in every corner-and if I had as many lives as a cat I would leave no corner unexplored.
strategy ought
Do what you can to do what you ought, and leave hoping and fearing alone.
matter reason consideration
In matters of intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard for any other consideration.
spiritual rome civilization
Rome is the one great spiritual organisation which is able to resist and must, as a matter of life and death, the progress of science and modern civilization
errors sound helping
It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors.
dream science men
Surely it must be plain that an ingenious man could speculate without end on both sides, and find analogies for all his dreams. Nor does it help me to tell me that the aspirations of mankind
imagination limits probability
The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.
men benefits slavery
No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.
thinking order speech
Freedom and order are not incompatible... truth is strength... free discussion is the very life of truth.
life player law
The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.
belief forgotten instinct
It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.
wise wisdom science
Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.
wise world sentimental
The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental.