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.

The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.

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

The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.

Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life

Building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.

A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there.

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.

It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.

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

What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!

Don’t believe on, “143 in written, ” Because words contribute only 7% in communication!

We are now at risk of having a zombie democracy roaming around a one-party state.

To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.

This age thing is all up to you. It's like happiness is up to you. You just have to understand what it is before you get it.

We're all connected by the system, and we all have to be a part, I think, of changing it.

An artist who theorizes about his work is no longer artist but critic.

First life, then spaces, then buildings - the other way around never works.

Each man has to seek out his own special aptitude for a higher life in the midst of the humble and inevitable reality of daily existence. Than this, there can be no nobler aim in life.

loved the show as a child and felt I could not do it justice. [on turning down the role of the new Doctor Who

I've been in the Labour Party 50 years and it's 40-odd since I was elected to Parliament