Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.
I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.
The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.
One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.
A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Charles Darwin
Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species.
A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.
I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness.
It at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed.
I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
It's an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed but ... most people just don't get it - I must be a very bad explainer
From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed. ... To group all facts under some general laws.
As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.
I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please.
...conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse.
Not one great country can be named, from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves.
Farewell Australia! You ... are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret.
Even the humblest mammal's strong sexual, parental, and social instincts give rise to 'do unto others as yourself' and 'love thy neighbor as thyself'.
In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.
Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory.
Even when we are quite alone, how often do we think with pleasure or pain of what others think of us - of their imagined approbation or disapprobation.
Daily it is forced home on the mind of the biologist that nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of this earth.
I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work in Natural Selection, which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being.
The limit of man s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination.
... probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.
I conclude that the musical notes and rhythms were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex.
The young blush much more freely than the old but not during infancy, which is remarkable, as we know that infants at a very early age redden from passion.
The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.
Englishmen rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief; whereas in some parts of the Continent the men shed tears much more readily and freely.
It may be doubted that there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures.
Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes.
In the survival of favoured individuals and races, during the constantly-recurring struggle for existence, we see a powerful and ever-acting form of selection.
I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science....It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.
Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, ... I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.
Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy the interposition of a great deity. More humble and I believe true to consider him created from animals.
I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brain... & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes.
We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
So great is the economy of nature, that most flowers which are fertilised by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit their odour chiefly or exclusively in the evening.
The man that created the theory of evolution by natural selection was thrown out by his Dad because he wanted him to be a doctor. GAWD, parents haven't changed much.
The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage.
From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows.
Till facts are grouped & called there can be no prediction. The only advantage of discovering laws is to foretell what will happen & to see bearing of scattered facts.
The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.
A surprising number [of novels] have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily-against which a law ought to be passed.
It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist. ... I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.
We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.
You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.
In regard to the amount of difference between the races, we must make some allowance for our nice powers of discrimination gained by a long habit of observing ourselves.