Henry Thomas Buckle Quotes

#1. The great enemy of knowledge is not error, but inertness. All that we want is discussion; and then we are sure to do well, no matter what our blunders may be. One error conflicts with another, each destroys its opponent, and truth is evolved.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#2. When the interval between the intellectual classes and the practical classes is too great, the former will possess no influence, the latter will reap no benefit.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#3. The duty of a philosopher is clear. He must take every pain to ascertain the truth; and, having arrived at a conclusion, he should noise it abroad far and wide, utterly regardless of what opinions he shocks.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#4. First doubt, then inquire, then discover. This has been the process with all our great thinkers.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#5. Sir, the slowness of genius is hard to bear, but the slowness of mediocrity is insufferable.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#6. He who knows most believes the least.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#7. The faculty of art is to change events; the faculty of science is to foresee them. The phenomena with which we deal are controlled by art; they are predicted by science.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#8. Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#9. You can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next, by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest, by their preference for the discussion of ideas.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#10. Whenever a man boasts much about [his common sense], you may be pretty sure that he has very little sense, either common or uncommon.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#11. The clergy, with a few honorable exceptions, have in all modern countries been the avowed enemies of the diffusion of knowledge, the danger of which to their own profession they, by a certain instinct, seem always to have perceived.

Henry Thomas Buckle

#12. In 1776, the Americans laid before Europe that noble Declaration, which ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and blazoned on the porch of every royal palace

Henry Thomas Buckle