Charles Darwin Quotes

Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.

We have happy days, remember good dinners.

Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last it was complete.

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.

It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards.

It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public, and I am sure that the views are original.

Our faculties are more fitted to recognize the wonderful structure of a beetle than a Universe.

The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.

The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form.

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.

Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals.

Animals manifestly enjoy excitement, and suffer from annul and may exhibit curiosity.

Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind.

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 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.

As the sense of smell is so intimately connected with that of taste, it is not surprising that an excessively bad odour should excite wretching or vomitting in some persons.

Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory.

I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me.

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.

Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles.

The Times is getting more detestable (but that is too weak word) than ever.

A cell is a complex structure, with its investing membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus.

I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions.

But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand.

Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have.

Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.

And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.

One hand has surely worked throughout the universe.

[Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived.

The normal food of man is vegetable.

To my deep mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family."

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.

...all nature is perverse & will not do as I wish it.

Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than humans would at first suppose.

It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter.

I suppose you are two fathoms deep in mathematics, and if you are, then God help you. For so am I, only with this difference: I stick fast in the mud at the bottom, and there I shall remain.

Music was known and understood before words were spoken.

A novel according to my taste, does not come into the moderately good class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love - and if a pretty woman, all the better.

The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry.

[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.

...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.—

The age-old and noble thought of 'I will lay down my life to save another,' is nothing more than cowardice.

In my simplicity, I remember wondering why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist.

If I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much as I have accomplished.

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.

A republic cannot succeed, till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.

I always make special notes about evidence that contridicts me: supportive evidence I can remember without trying.

The season of love is that of battle. The roots of these fights run deep.

Farewell Australia! You ... are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret.

Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can.