Charles Darwin Quotes

Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such care.

I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.

Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy.

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.

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

Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved

Some call it evolution, And others call it God.

Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world.

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.

Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music.

I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.

A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, - a mere heart of stone.

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

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.

As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.

Man, wonderful man, must collapse, into nature's cauldron, he is no deity, he is no exception.

The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.

Man himself cannot express love and humility by external signs, so plainly as does a dog, when with drooping ears, hanging lips, flexuous body, and wagging tail, he meets his beloved master.

Formerly Milton's Paradise Lost had been my chief favourite, and in my excursions during the voyage of the Beagle, when I could take only a single small volume, I always chose Milton.

The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.

Only the fittest will survive.

It strikes me that all our knowledge about the structure of our Earth is very much like what an old hen would know of the hundred-acre field in a corner of which she is scratching.

Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal.

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.

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

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

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

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'.

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

Light may be shed on man and his origins.

...for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.

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.

It's not the strongest, but the most adaptable that survive.

I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.

He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.

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.

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

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

Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.

Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.

A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct.

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

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

...he who remains passive when over-whelmed with grief loses his best chance of recovering his elasticity of mind.

The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile.

Language is an art, like brewing or baking.... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.

I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.

Much love much trial, but what an utter desert is life without love.

... not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity.