6 Thomas Henry Huxley Quotes on Character

Thomas Henry Huxley quotes on character

13. 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. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

16. The man who is all morality and intellect, although he may be good and even great, is, after all, only half a man.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

20. 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.

49. Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men 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. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side.

74. 'If he [THH] has a fault it is... that like Caesar, he is ambitious... [it might be said that] cutting up apes is his forte, cutting up men is his foible'

75. 'Darwin's bulldog was patently a man of almost puritanical uprightness'