"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change"
— Charles Darwin

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
— Charles Darwin (Origin of Species)

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."
— Charles Darwin

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

"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic."
— Charles Darwin

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
— Charles Darwin

"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."
— Charles Darwin

"I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men"
— Charles Darwin

"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin."
— Charles Darwin

"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 a week."
— Charles Darwin

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we would expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. "
— Charles Darwin

"The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts."
— Charles Darwin

"It may be worth while to illustrate this view of classification, by taking the case of languages. If we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of the races of man would afford the best classification of the various languages now spoken throughout the world; and if all extinct languages, and all intermediate and slowly changing dialects, were to be included, such an arrangement would be the only possible one. Yet it might be that some ancient languages had altered very little and had given rise to few new languages, whilst others had altered much owing to the spreading, isolation, and state of civilisation of the several co-descended races, and had thus given rise to many new dialects and languages. The various degrees of difference between the languages of the same stock, would have to be expressed by groups subordinate to groups; but the proper or even the only possible arrangement would still be genealogical; and this would be strictly natural, as it would connect together all languages, extinct and recent, by the closest affinities, and would give the filiation and origin of each tongue."
— Charles Darwin

"What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame; the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly."
— Charles Darwin

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree. "
— Charles Darwin

"I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe and this would include my Father Brother and almost all of my friends will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."
— Charles Darwin

"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars."
— Charles Darwin

""Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."
"
— Charles Darwin

"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows...There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whiles this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
— Charles Darwin (Origin of Species)

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this plant has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being, evolved."
— Charles Darwin

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
— Charles Darwin

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."
— Charles Darwin

"There is grandeur in this view of things."
— Charles Darwin

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life"
— Charles Darwin

"Great is the power of steady misrepresentation"
— Charles Darwin

"Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind."
— Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species)

"We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act."
— Charles Darwin

"Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life. "
— Charles Darwin

""A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Charles Darwin"
— Charles Darwin

"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. . .
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
— Charles Darwin

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

"Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather. "
— Charles Darwin

"...I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can.—"
— Charles Darwin

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
— Charles Darwin

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

""Is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change" "
— Charles Darwin

"A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."
— Charles Darwin

""An American Monkey after getting drunk on Brandy would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men” "
— Charles Darwin

"He who understands baboons would do more towards metaphysics than Locke."
— Charles Darwin

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
"
— Charles Darwin

""I am not the least afraid to die" "
— Charles Darwin

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
— Charles Darwin (Origin of Species)

"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
— Charles Darwin

"There is grandeur in this view of life."
— Charles Darwin

"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone."
— Charles Darwin (Origin of Species)

"We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence."
— Charles Darwin (Origin of Species)

"One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one."
— Charles Darwin

"I had also, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely that whenever published fact, a new observation of thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones."
— Charles Darwin

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

"Origin of man now proved. Metaphysics must flourish. He who understand baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke."
— Charles Darwin (Red Notebook of Charles Darwin)