The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Dare hope to survive.
And among that billion minus one
Might have chanced to be
Shakespeare, another Newton, a new Donne—
But the One was Me.
‘Fifth Philosopher’s Song’ (1920)
Ragtime...but when the wearied Band
Swoons to a waltz, I take her hand,
And there we sit in peaceful calm,
Quietly sweating palm to palm.
‘Frascati’s’ (1920)
Beauty for some provides escape,
Who gain a happiness in eyeing
The gorgeous buttocks of the ape
Or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.
‘Ninth Philosopher’s Song’ (1920)
Then brim the bowl with atrabilious liquor!
We’ll pledge our Empire vast across the flood:
For Blood, as all men know, than Water’s thicker,
But Water’s wider, thank the Lord, than Blood.
‘Ninth Philosopher’s Song’ (1920)
8.165 Sir Julian Huxley 1887-1975
Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic
Cheshire cat.
‘Religion without Revelation’ (1957 ed.) ch. 3
8.166 T. H. Huxley 1825-95
Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented there [the Metaphysical
Society], and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my colleagues were—ists of one sort
or another; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to
cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have beset the
historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his
normally elongated companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the
appropriate title of ‘agnostic’.
‘Collected Essays’ (1893-94) ‘Agnosticism’
The great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
‘Collected Essays’ (1893-94) ‘Biogenesis and Abiogenesis’
Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a
veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as