Charles Darwin Quotes

I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone.

I long to set foot where no man has trod before.

It is like confessing to a murder.

I cannot see ... evidence of design and beneficence ... There seems to me too much misery in the world.

The young blush much more freely than the old but not during infancy, which is remarkable, as we know that infants at a very early age redden from passion.

Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee and spirituous liqueurs.

The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress.

About weak points [of the Origin] I agree. The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations, my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder.

...conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse.

The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank.

Life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing.

The man who walks with Henslow.

I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please.

I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts.

Englishmen rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief; whereas in some parts of the Continent the men shed tears much more readily and freely.

Sympathy will have been increased through natural selection

I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science....It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.

Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist.

On your life, underestimating the proclivities of finches is likely to lead to great internal hemorrhaging.

In regard to the amount of difference between the races, we must make some allowance for our nice powers of discrimination gained by a long habit of observing ourselves.

I feel like an old warhorse at the sound of a trumpet when I read about the capturing of rare beetles.

The man that created the theory of evolution by natural selection was thrown out by his Dad because he wanted him to be a doctor. GAWD, parents haven't changed much.

If man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own reception.

I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation.

We fancied even that the bushes smelt unpleasantly.

But I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.

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.

None can reply - all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue, which teaches awful doubt.

It is necessary to look forward to a harvest, however distant that may be, when some fruit will be reaped, some good effected.

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives—of approving of some and disapproving of others.

Origin of man now proved.—Metaphysics must flourish.—He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.

He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise when he has met with an animal having habits and structure not at all in agreement.

But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.

It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature.

I agree with Agassiz that dogs possess something very like a conscience.

I have called the principle by which each slight variation if useful is preserved by the term of Natural Selection.

The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate and is sometimes equally convenient.

I have called this principle by which each slight variation if useful is preserved by the term natural selection.

The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the "Survival of the fittest" is more accurate and is sometimes equally convenient.

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

As for future life every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

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

As for a future life every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague possibilities.

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