If then, said I, the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessing great means and influence and yet who employs those faculties for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion-I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.
Thomas HuxleyIt is better to read a little and thoroughly than cram a crude undigested mass into my head, though it be great in quantity.
Thomas HuxleyThe only good that I can see in the demonstration of the truth of "Spiritualism" is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a "medium" hired at a guinea a sรฉance.
Thomas HuxleyUnity of plan everywhere lies hidden under the mask: of diversity of structure-the complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple.
Thomas HuxleyEvery great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
Thomas HuxleyThe sceptics end in the infidelity which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in the atheism which denies the existence of any orderly progress and governance of things: the men of genius propound solutions which grow into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical language which suggests more than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch.
Thomas Huxley