QuoteProject
I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy.
Thomas Huxley
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Embrace individuality in thought and challenge conventional norms to avoid personal unhappiness.

Thomas Huxley's quote emphasizes the importance of original thinking and the courage to forge one's own path rather than conforming to societal expectations. He warns against being bound by the shadows of conventional beliefs, which can lead to widespread unhappiness, advocating instead for a more personal and distinctive approach to understanding life and its challenges.

Themes

IndividualityThoughtOrthodoxyHappinessFearCourage

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about embracing individuality and creativity.

More from Thomas Huxley

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
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.
Thomas HuxleyRead
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.
Thomas HuxleyRead
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
Thomas HuxleyRead
It is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible.
Thomas HuxleyRead
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.
Thomas HuxleyRead

Similar quotes

The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.
John Shelby SpongRead
Death really did not matter to him but life did, and therefore the sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
I recall drinking sherry in California and dreaming of England, where I ate dalmoth and dreamed of Delhi. What is the purpose, I wonder, of all this restlessness? I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
Vikram SethRead
I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy.
Edgar Allan PoeRead
The Divine was beyond description, beyond knowing, beyond comprehension. To say that the Divine was Creation divided by Destruction was as close as one could come to definition. But the puny of soul, the dull of wit, weren't content with that. They wanted to hang a face on the Divine. They went so far as to attribute petty human emotions - anger, jealousy, etc - to it, not stopping to realize that if God were a being, even a supreme being, our prayers would have bored him to death long ago.
Tom RobbinsRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.