The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley Quotes

In fact a favourite problem of Tyndall is-Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

If there is anything in the world which I do firmly believe in, it is the universal validity of the law of causation.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

All knowledge is good. It is impossible to say any fragment of knowledge, however insignificant or remote from one’s ordinary pursuits, may not some day be turned to account.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philanthropist.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

I care not what subject is taught, if only it be taught well.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

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

— Thomas Henry Huxley

If the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom, it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with political, as they now deal with scientific questions.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Veracity is the heart of morality.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

That man, I think, has had a liberal education, who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Agnosticism is not properly described as a “negative” creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but people 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.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Fact I know; and Law I know; but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind’s throwing?

— Thomas Henry Huxley

To persons uninstructed in natural history, their country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

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

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Man’s Place in Nature.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Deduction, which takes us from the general proposition to facts again-teaches us, if I may so say, to anticipate from the ticket what is inside the bundle.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

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.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance – that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

If then the question is put to me whether I would rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet employs these faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.

— Thomas Henry Huxley
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