Thomas Henry Huxley

Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences.

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.

I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'.

Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle.

The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability.

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond facts, rarely get as far as facts.

Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws.

Perhaps 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.

The scientific spirit is of more value than its products.

My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the Origin of Species, was a flash of enthusiasm.

I have no faith, very little hope, and as to love—whether great or small, it is a word that does not convey to my mind any definite idea.

How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!

Theology is anthropomorphism.

Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science.

Freedom and order are not incompatible... the true difficulty is to combine them.

The medieval university instinct was the same as ours... to know all things.

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 wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer.

The results of science are not for the scientist alone, but for the whole of humanity.

Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation.

The mind of man may be compared to a musical instrument with a certain range of notes, beyond which in both directions we have an infinitude of silence.