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Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.

— Thomas Henry Huxley Reply to Charles Kingsley (1860)

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More quotes by Thomas Henry Huxley

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

On the advisableness of improving natural knowledge (1866)

Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.

The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.

Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature (1863)

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

Technical Education (1877)

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Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification.

Simone Weil

One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love — to serve the loved one without his knowing it — is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism.

Simone Weil Last Notebook (1942)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Henry Huxley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.