Charles Darwin Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Charles Darwin on Wise Famous Quotes.
It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature.
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.
Conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse.
A pleasurable and excited state of mind, associated with affection, is exhibited by some dogs in a very peculiar manner, namely, by grinning.
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.
If any man wants to gain a good opinion of his fellow men, he ought to do what I am doing: pester them with letters.
Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.
What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!
Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather.
The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form.
Two distinct elements are included under the term "inheritance" - the transmission, and the development of characters;
It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards.
To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree
We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.
The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.
On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.
I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.
A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question. Charles Darwin
Sexual selection will also be largely dominated by natural selection tending towards the general welfare of the species.
Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have.
The age-old and noble thought of 'I will lay down my life to save another,' is nothing more than cowardice.
A republic cannot succeed, till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
If man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own reception.
Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character.
I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance Huxley
Even people who aren't geniuses can outthink the rest of mankind if they develop certain thinking habits.
Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science.
But I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.
The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.
The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.
The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers.
[T]he young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements.
The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile.
An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.
It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter.
It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.
This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection.
Language is an art, like brewing or baking ... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.
Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.
Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.
None can reply - all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue, which teaches awful doubt.
Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone.
I always make special notes about evidence that contridicts me: supportive evidence I can remember without trying.
There is a grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful are being evolved
It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.