Thomas Henry Huxley

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the way in which a savage wields his club.

The most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.

I have no doubt that in the future, as in the past, the great majority of men will continue to believe, as their fathers did before them, that the world is governed by a divine power, and that the ultimate destiny of man is in the hands of that power.

The great tragedy of science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

The chessboard 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. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But we also know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.

I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything.

The question of all questions for humanity, the problem which lies behind all others and is more interesting than any other, is to determine the place which man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe.

God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me.

If a man is able to be a good father, a good husband, a good citizen, a good friend, he has done his duty, and has a right to be happy.

The only medicine for suffering, crime, and superstition is science.

It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

The improver of natural knowledge hath no other end in view than the glory of God and the relief of man's estate.

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.

I am not aware that any man has ever been able to define the difference between a living and a dead body.

The history of science is the record of the substitution of the true for the false, of the certain for the uncertain, and of the exact for the vague.

Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.

The great object of education is to train the intellect to use its powers with accuracy and skill.

The more I study nature, the more I am amazed at the wisdom of its laws.