Quotes from Thomas Henry Huxley

The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect.

The Bible has been the Magna Carta of the poor and of the oppressed. The human race is not in a position to dispense with it.

The chess-board 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 also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.

Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.

The chess board 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 also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.

For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes to see them.

I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission.

There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.

The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.

The medieval university looked backwards; it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge. The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge.

It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.

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