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Evolution Quotes by Charles Darwin

103 Evolution quotes by Charles Darwin

All Evolution quotes Charles Darwin’s page

I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science, yet I still describe natural selection as a daily filter. It keeps useful tiny variations and discards the harmful ones. The same gradual process links the rise of new species with the evolution of language.

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Sympathy will have been increased through natural selection

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

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It is not the strongest of the species that survive, but the one most responsive to change.

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

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We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.

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

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

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Some call it evolution, And others call it God.

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

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

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The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded…

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

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I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science…It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with…

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The man that created the theory of evolution by natural selection was thrown out by his Dad because he wanted him to…

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From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production…

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

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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…

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“But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as…

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Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an…

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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…

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The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this…

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I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the…

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Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable…

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Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an…

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For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order…

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“I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.'…

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“I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal…

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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…

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As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle…

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“Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern…

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“It has already been stated that various parts in the same individual, which are exactly alike during an early embryonic period, become…

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Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I…

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“I will here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority…

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“The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree.I believe this simile largely…

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

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One hand has surely worked throughout the universe

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Natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight successive favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification; it can act only…

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

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“Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of…

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In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best…

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More by Charles Darwin

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

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

So great is the economy of nature, that most flowers which are fertilised by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit their odour chiefly or exclusively…

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

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…

If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and over their burrows, as seems the…

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to…

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…

May we not suspect that the vague but very real fears of children, which are quite independent of experience, are the inherited effects of…

It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is…

“Darwin, landing in Brazil in 1832, had a similar reaction, colored by his reading of his predecessor." Humboldt's glorious descriptions are & will for…

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

“To admit that species generally become rare before they become extinct—to feel no surprise at the comparative rarity of one species with another, and…

To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects…