Quotes from Thomas Henry Huxley

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered.

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. 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 like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads or you shall learn nothing.

Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

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

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.

To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the infinite may be seen.

The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.

Do what you can to do what you ought, and leave hoping and fearing alone.

It is not what we believe, but why we believe it. Moral responsibility lies in diligently weighing the evidence. We must actively doubt; we have to scrutinize our views, not take them on trust. No virtue attached to blindly accepting orthodoxy, however 'venerable'...

The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the infinite may be seen.

Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.

The great tragedy of Science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact

Science is 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 manne

Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic

Freedom and order are not incompatible... truth is strength... free discussion is the very life of truth.