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.
Thomas HuxleyRead
My experience of the world is that things left to themselves don't get right.
Interpretation
Left unattended, circumstances and situations often deteriorate and do not improve on their own.
This quote by Thomas Huxley emphasizes the necessity of active engagement and intervention in order to bring about positive change. It suggests that passivity leads to decay and that one must take responsibility to ensure improvement in the world around them.
In practice
In a motivational speech about community service, one could use this quote to encourage involvement in local issues.
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.
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.
Let us have "sweet girl graduates" by all means. They will be none the less sweet for a little wisdom; and the "golden hair" will not curl less gracefully outside the head by reason of there being brains within.
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
It is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible.
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.
A billion years or so into eternity, how many toys we accumulated during this life will not seem too terribly important.
Racism is taught in our society, it is not automatic. It is learned behavior toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics.
Scientists have power by virtue of the respect commanded by the discipline... We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domain. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers.
How then to enforce peace? Not by reason, certainly, nor by education. If a man could not look at the fact of peace and the fact of war and choose the former in preference to the latter, what additional argument could persuade him? What could be more eloquent as a condemnation of war than war itself? What tremendous feat of dialectic could carry with it a tenth the power of a single gutted ship with its ghastly cargo?
In war, the truth must be guarded by a body guard of lies.
We discover that we do not know our role; we look for a mirror; we want to remove our make-up and take off what is false and real. But somewhere a piece of disguise that we forgot still sticks to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our mouth are bent. And so we walk around, a mockery and a mere half: neither having achieved being nor actors.
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