Quote#Freedom
If some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true…
Quote byThomas Henry Huxley · 1825–1895
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "On Descartes' Discourse touching the method of using one's reason rightly and of seeking scientific truth" (1870).
English (original)
If some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. 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 any one who will take it of me.
— Thomas Henry Huxley
More from Thomas Henry Huxley
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A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather.
I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission
To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.
But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought.
Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.