Skip to content

The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious — fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance.

— Thomas Henry Huxley The interpreters of Genesis and the interpreters of Nature (1885)

Another quote →

Topics

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)

All Thomas Henry Huxley quotes →

You may also like

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas Babington Macaulay History of England (1849)

Attribution

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.