Thomas Henry Huxley

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

“The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”

“It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”

“The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying.”

“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.”

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

“If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?”

“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.”

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

“Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.”

“The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.”