238 Quotes by Thomas Henry Huxley

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

The student of Nature wonders the more and is astonished the less, the more conversant he becomes with her operations; but of all the perennial miracles she offers to his inspection, perhaps the most worthy of admiration is the development of a plant or of an animal from its embryo.

The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. It is simply the mode in which all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise and exact.

The question of all questions for humanity, the problem which lies behind all others and is more interesting than any of them, is that of the determination of man’s place in nature and his relation to the cosmos.

It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

For myself I say deliberately, it is better to have a millstone tied round the neck and be thrown into the sea than to share the enterprises of those to whom the world has turned, and will turn, because they minister to its weaknesses and cover up the awful realities which it shudders to look at.

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.

There is no absurdity in theology so great that you cannot parallel it by a greater absurdity in Nature.

If individuality has no play, society does not advance; if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.