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The great end of life is not knowledge but action. ...
by Thomas Henry Huxley

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
- Thomas Henry Huxley

Related topics: Life Human-Nature Psychology Action

Quotes by Thomas Henry Huxley

The Four Stages of Public Opinion
I (Just after publication): The novelty is absurd
and subversive of Religion and Morality.
The propounder both fool and knave.
II (Twenty years later): The Novelty is absolute Truth
and will yield a full and satisfactory
explanation of things in general -
The propounder a man of sublime genius and perfect virtue.
III (Forty years later): The Novelty won't explain
things in general after all, and therefore is a wretched failure.
The propounder a very ordinary person advertised by a clique.
IV (A century later): The Novelty a mixture of truth and error.
Explains as much as could reasonably be expected.
The propounder worthy of all honor
in spite of his share of human frailties,
as one who has added to the permanent possessions of science.
- Thomas Henry [T. H.] Huxley

Great Quotes and Sayings

To the young child, all life is a great adventure -
when did we grow so dull and brittle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If (s)he's an apple and you're an orange,
celebrate your differences -
make a great fruit salad.
Love isn't about being the same -
it's about being sweet with each other.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks
as if they were great and noble.
- Helen Keller

To be one, to be united is a great thing.
But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
- Bono

Regrets and resentments cause great suffering but fix nothing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Great minds discuss ideas;
average minds discuss events;
small minds discuss people.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation
can be trusted to act humanely
or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
- Bertrand Russell

Life in abundance comes only through great love.
- Elbert Hubbard

Silence is a source of great strength.
- Lao Tzu

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness
of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
- Albert Einstein

In great contests, each party claims to act
in accordance with the will of God.
Both may be, and one must be wrong.
- Abraham Lincoln

I have a great deal of company in the house,
especially in the morning when nobody calls.
- Henry David Thoreau

Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I love being married.
It's so great to find that one special person
you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
- Rita Rudner

My great concern is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content with your failure.
- Abraham Lincoln

The time-traveling is just too dangerous.
Better that I devote myself to study
the other great mystery of the universe - women!
- the movie Back to the Future II

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt
to offer a solution everybody can understand.
- Colin Powell

The great pleasure in life is doing
what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot

About leadership: No person can be a great leader
unless he takes genuine joy
in the successes of those under him.
- W. A. Nance

Living in fear of anything is a terrible waste
of what could be a great life.
If you live in fear of losing your job,
either you fear the embarrassment of being jobless,
or you fear the loss of material goods -
house, car, and such.
If you live in fear of losing your stuff and money,
it is clear that they own you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am a great believer in luck
and I find that the harder
I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson

I am prepared to meet my Maker.
Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal
of meeting me is another matter.
- Winston Churchill

It's not as great a day for the bride as she thinks.
She's not marrying the best man.
- Anonymous

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort,
and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Small opportunities are often
the beginning of great enterprises.
- Demosthenes

Hey, Marge. Isn't it great being married
to someone who's recklessly impulsive?
- The Simpsons Movie (2007)

The willow which bends to the tempest,
often escapes better than the oak which resists it;
and so in great calamities,
it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits
recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner
than those of a loftier character.
- Albert Schweitzer

A great secret of success is to go through life
as a man who never gets used up.
- Albert Schweitzer

Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Great Relationship is the Dance of Two Great Lives.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.
- Lewis Carroll

The greatest roadblock to a great relationship
is trying to force a partner to change through bribes or threats.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One great thing about getting old is that
you can get out of all sorts of social obligations
just by saying you're too tired.
- George Carlin

Life is about more than today, and more than yourself.
What will your legacy be?
What will your great-grandchildren be told about you?
Creating a legacy does not have to be a burden,
it can be your joy and can create
your satisfaction with living each day.
What kind of world do you want to leave your great-grandchildren?
What can you do today to help create that world?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The only good luck many great men ever had was
being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.
- Channing Pollock

Great leadership is not the visit of an unexpected fate
but rather a flame which is kept burning
in spite of the winds of risk and opposition.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

We have a great life here in Alaska,
and we're never going back to America again!
- The Simpsons Movie (2007)

After climbing a great hill,
one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
- Nelson Mandela

You ask me if I keep a notebook
to record my great ideas.
I've only ever had one.
- Albert Einstein

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

That some achieve great success,
is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
- Abraham Lincoln

Until you'll willing to look foolish,
you'll never have the possibility of being great.
- Cher

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

My father always used to say that when you die,
if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.
- Lee Iacocca

It is a great confidence in a friend
to tell him your faults;
greater to tell him his.
- Benjamin Franklin

Being is the great explainer.
- Henry David Thoreau

In principle, the great religions of the world
do not differ as much as they appear to.
- Ernest Holmes

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
- George Bernard Shaw

Great talents are the most lovely
and often the most dangerous
fruits on the tree of humanity.
They hang upon the most slender twigs
that are easily snapped off.
- Carl Jung

Most people say that is it is the intellect
which makes a great scientist.
They are wrong: it is character.
- Albert Einstein

Death comes to all,
but great achievements build a monument
which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wicked leader is he who the people despise.
The good leader is he who the people revere.
The great leader is he who the people say, "We did it ourselves."
- Lao Tzu

One of the surest ways to cause
yourself great suffering
is to insist upon being right -
to demand that all others view life
exactly as you view it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Man becomes great exactly in the degree
in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden

There are trivial truths and there are great truths.
The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false.
The opposite of a great truth is also true.
- Niels Bohr

Nurture your mind with great thoughts,
for you will never go any higher than you think.
- Benjamin Disraeli

The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
- Henry David Thoreau

The water in a vessel is sparkling;
the water in the sea is dark.
The small truth has words which are clear;
the great truth has great silence.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that,
but the really great make you feel that
you, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain

The essence of life is not in
the great victories and grand failures,
but in the simple joys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Everything that is really great and inspiring
is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
- Albert Einstein

No great thing is created suddenly.
- Epictetus

The finest kind of friendship is between people
who expect a great deal of each other but never ask it.
- Anonymous

Truly great friends are hard to find,
difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.
- Anonymous

To be conscious that you are ignorant
is a great step to knowledge.
- Benjamin Disraeli

No one can have a higher opinion of you than I have,
and I think you're a slimy, contemptible sewer rat!
- the movie The Great Mouse Detective

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy

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Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life.  It Really Is.
      - Jonathan Lockwood Huie