A hammer poised above a ceramic pot filled with brass nails, with loose nails beside it on a plum-gray surface.

Original artwork, not a still

Thomas Huxley

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker places action above knowledge as life's ultimate purpose. The short contrast gives doing the final emphasis without explaining what actions are meant. One reading challenges the sufficiency of understanding alone, asking that life be judged through something beyond what is known.

Context reviewed

Share this quote