Francis Galton: Quotes about men

Francis Galton was British polymath: geographer, statistician, pioneer in eugenics. Explore interesting quotes on men.

Francis Galton: 28 quotes2 likes

“A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organisation.”

Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883), p. 80
Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883)

“All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.”

Source: Memories of My Life (1908), Chapter V Cambridge

“General impressions are never to be trusted. Unfortunately when they are of long standing they become fixed rules of life and assume a prescriptive right not to be questioned. Consequently those who are not accustomed to original inquiry entertain a hatred and horror of statistics. They cannot endure the idea of submitting sacred impressions to cold-blooded verification. But it is the triumph of scientific men to rise superior to such superstitions, to desire tests by which the value of beliefs may be ascertained, and to feel sufficiently masters of themselves to discard contemptuously whatever may be found untrue.”

Cited in Modgil, Sohan, and Celia Modgil, eds. Arthur Jensen: Consensus and Controversy. Vol. 4. Routledge, 1987.
Other works

“I have already spoken in Hereditary Genius of the large effects of religious persecution in comparatively recent years, on the natural character of races, and shall not say more about it here; but it must not be omitted from the list of steady influences continuing through ancient historical times down, in some degree, to the present day, in destroying the self-reliant, and therefore the nobler races of men.”

Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883), p. 80
Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883)