Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If there is anything in the world which I do firmly believe in, it is the universal validity of the law of causation.
And when you cannot prove that people are wrong, but only that they are absurd, the best course is to let them alone.
The doctrine that all men are, in any sense, or have been, at any time, free and equal, is an utterly baseless fiction.
Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady.
Every philosophical thinker hails it [The Origin of Species] as a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism.
The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.
The more rapidly truth is spread among mankind the better it will be for them. Only let us be sure that it is the truth.
Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.
Action is the catalyst that creates accomplishments. It is the path that takes us from uncrafted hopes to realized dreams.
Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture and very much to our credit.
It is better to read a little and thoroughly than cram a crude undigested mass into my head, though it be great in quantity.
Claiming my right to follow whethersoever science should lead... it is as respectable to be modified monkey as modified dirt.
My business is to teach my aspirations to confirm themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.
Every living creature commences its existence under a form different from, and simpler than, that which it eventually attains.
Cherish [Science], venerate her, follow her methods faithfully ... and the future of this people will be greater than the past.
The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.
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.
'Infidel' is a term of reproach, which Christians and Mohammedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from them.
Unity of plan everywhere lies hidden under the mask: of diversity of structure-the complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple.
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 doubt the fact, to begin with, but if it be so even, what is this but in grand words asking me to believe a thing because I like it.
It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors.
Friendship involves many things but, above all the power of going outside oneself and appreciating what is noble and loving in another.
Nothing great in science has ever been done by men, whatever their powers, in whom the divine afflatus of the truth-seeker was wanting.
The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false.
Of the few innocent pleasures left to men past middle life, the jamming of common sense down the throats of fools is perhaps the keenest.
No delusion is greater than the notion that method and industry can make up for lack of mother-wit, either in science or in practical life.
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.
My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin', was, 'How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!'
It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.
Nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption one sometimes meets with, that physics has one method, chemistry another, and biology a third.
I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Whitechapel is low.
The child who has been taught to make an accurate elevation, plan, and section of a pint pot has had an admirable training in accuracy of eye and hand.
I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
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.
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.
There is far too much of the feeding-bottle in education and young people ought to be supplied with good intellectual food and then left to help themselves.
Rome is the one great spiritual organisation which is able to resist and must, as a matter of life and death, the progress of science and modern civilization
I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.
The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.
I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything especially as I am now so much occupied with theology but I don't see my way to your conclusion.
The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me
The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me.
No mistake is so commonly made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be bad because the arguments of its supporters are, to a great extent, nonsensical
Can any one deny that the old Israelites conceived Jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man?
It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.
I take it that the good of mankind means the attainment, by every man, of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow men
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.
I take it that the good of mankind means the attainment, by every man, of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow men.