306 Quotes by Thomas Huxley

Unity of plan everywhere lies hidden under the mask: of diversity of structure-the complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple.

The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental.

Material advancement has its share in moral and intellectual progress. Becky Sharp's acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year has its applications to nations; and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.

It ought not to be unpleasant to say that which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so constantly is painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress of mankind in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word or of deed.

Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

... our "Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced such infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new worlds in time and space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex problems, that the eyes of Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the sight of the tree that has grown out of their grain of mustard seed.

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.

There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.

It is a popular delusion that the scientific enquirer is under an obligation not to go beyond generalisation of observed facts...but anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond the facts, rarely get as far.