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Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin Quotes

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Famous Charles Darwin Quotes

“If a person asked my advice, before undertaking a long voyage, my answer would depend upon his possessing a decided taste for some branch of knowledge, which could by this means be advanced. No doubt it is a high satisfaction to behold various countries and the many races of mankind, but the pleasures gained at the time do not counterbalance the evils.”

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Book:The Voyage of the Beagle
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“This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character.”

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Book:On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life
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“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.”

Has BeensBeautifulFormLawReligionSimpleViewsGoneWonderfulAtheismPlanetsEvolutionSpeciesEndlessEvolveFixedGravityGrandeurNatural SelectionCyclingTheory Of EvolutionOrigin Of LifeOrigin Of SpeciesCreation And EvolutionEvolution Of Life
Author:Charles Darwin
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“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.”

KindTwoHandsLostLosesSawsBearsOne DayMouthsThirdsTongueAlasFluidSpitBarkBeetles
Book:The Autobiography of Charles Darwin: the Evolution
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“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 freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.”

ShouldBelieveHas BeensDifferentLightSeemsEyeScienceImaginationNaturalPerfectFocusMinesTheoryAmountDegreesHighestDifficultyDistanceSpeciesComplexesAbsurdSelectionCould Have BeenNatural SelectionCorrectionsAdmittingSubversiveDarwinismMiningAdjustingAberrationOrigin Of SpeciesHuman EyesThese EyesCreationistNatural Forms
Author:Charles Darwin
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“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.”

IfsMenBelieveI CanShowsSeemsReligionFatherLanguageWishFamilyChristianityAtheismBrotherOughtMy FriendsAtheistDoctrineBeing TrueNatural SelectionTheismTheistReligious PhilosophyChristian AtheistChristian DoctrinePlain Language
Book:Autobiographies
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“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.”

MindFacesFoundDifficultForgetStruggleBearsEasierSingingBirdUniversalRoundsSeedsConclusionDestroyingInsectsGladness
Author:Charles Darwin
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“As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.”

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Book:The Descent of Man: the Evolution
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“I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.”

ThinkingFormSufferingCoursesNaturalCompetitionSpeciesImprovementClosestSelectionNatural SelectionModificationOrigin Of Species
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)
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“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

MenWorldMayStatesRaceBreakDoubtCenturyPeriodsLowsNo DoubtProfessorsBlack PeopleSavagesAustralianApesDescentDarwinismGorillasCivilisedPopulation ControlBaboonsCaucasianOrigin Of Man
Book:The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
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“The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”

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Book:Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution
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“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.”

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Book:On the Origin of Species
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“But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.”

BelieveDoeLyingI BelieveProcessNumbersRecordsSeriousTheoryEvolutionObviousExtremesI Believe InScalesEnormousChainsVarietyExplanationProportionLinksImperfectionFossilsFormationObjectionsGeologyDarwinismTheory Of EvolutionOrigin Of SpeciesExterminationPaleontology
Book:On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle
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“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. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”

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Book:Autobiography and Selected Letters
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“I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”

WorldHas BeensIdeasDoneShowsSeemsRememberFightingNationsNaturalNumbersRaceExistenceStruggleProgressRiskCenturyHigherCivilizationEuropeRidiculousEndlessRanCivilizedBeatenOverwhelmedSelectionHollowNatural SelectionTurkishDarwinismCivilisedCaucasianStruggle For ExistenceBeing Overwhelmed
Book:Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution
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“To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both."—Bacon: "Advancement of Learning".”

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Book:The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species
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“Nevertheless so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the forms of life!”

WorldFormLawCausesIgnoranceProfoundNeverthelessExtinctionDurationPresumptionInvokeDesolateOrigin Of Species
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)
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“As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been specially created and adapted for that country, being beaten and supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land.”

NeedsFeelsHas BeensCountryNaturalViewsLandDegreesOrdinaryPerfectionRelationCompetitionSurpriseProductionsBeatenAssociatesSelectionAdaptationAdaptedNatural Selection
Book:On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection
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