Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact. – Thomas Huxley
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 Huxley
The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect. – Thomas Huxley
The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear. – Thomas Huxley
The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all other woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write, and you have put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. But it is quite another thing to open the box. – Thomas Huxley
It is the customary fate of new truths, to begin as heresies, and to end as superstitions. – Thomas Huxley
I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and would up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. – Thomas Huxley
The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental. – Thomas Huxley
Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation. – Thomas 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 Huxley
Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. – Thomas Huxley
Freedom and order are not incompatible… truth is strength… free discussion is the very life of truth. – Thomas Huxley
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
Nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption one sometimes meets with, that physics has one method, chemistry another, and biology a third. – Thomas Huxley
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. – Thomas Huxley
The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. – Thomas Huxley
It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organization upon the natural organization of the body. – Thomas Huxley
Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion! – Thomas Huxley
The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. – Thomas Huxley
There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics none in which there is more need of good pilotage and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high. – Thomas Huxley