Charles Darwin Quotes

When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings wh...

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false v...

The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate and...

The limit of man s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by ...

A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.

But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has bee...

But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has bee...

Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into s...

A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.

Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which...

I have called this principle by which each slight variation if useful is preserved by the term n...

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wise...

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasiti...

The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the "Survival of the fittest" is more accurate...

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will al...

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different di...

But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even C...

How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.

[Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived.

Light may be shed on man and his origins.

I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.

I agree with Agassiz that dogs possess something very like a conscience.

On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explan...

We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced t...

A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, o...

Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from th...

One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I s...

It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nat...

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us and I for one must be content to rema...

As for a future life every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague possibilities.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false v...

The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason.

The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree.I...

When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings wh...

As for future life every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

I have tried lately to read Shakespeare and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.

But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a ...

It may be worth while to illustrate this view of classification, by taking the case of languages. If...

I have called the principle by which each slight variation if useful is preserved by the term of ...

I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the s...

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and no...

I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization ...

To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new ...

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by l...

Origin of man now proved.—Metaphysics must flourish.—He who understands baboon would do more towards...

The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injuriou...

...Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by seve...

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some...

But I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blu...

As the great botanist Bichat long ago said, if everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be ...

The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, en...

He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surpr...

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will al...

Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence w...

We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to di...

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives—of approving...

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not th...

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded ...

In regard to the amount of difference between the races, we must make some allowance for our nice po...

It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.

Englishmen rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief; whereas in some parts of the ...

Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolb...

A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variet...

Nothing at first can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instinct...

Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more diffi...

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed int...

If about a dozen genera of birds had become extinct or were unknown, who would have ventured to have...

In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based ...

One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the s...

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of...

In the future I see open fields for more important researches. Psychology will be securely based on ...

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by ...

The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, an...

But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the ...

When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyon...

As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, t...

As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation...

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been forme...

It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countryme...

There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature...

The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth, considered from ou...

It is necessary to look forward to a harvest, however distant that may be, when some fruit will be r...

One hand has surely worked throughout the universe.

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our...

None can reply - all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue, which teaches awful ...