I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science....It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.'… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“Origin of man now proved.—Metaphysics must flourish.—He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.” — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree.I believe this simile largely… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature.” — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest but the most complete of all the distinctions between… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications,… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
So great is the economy of nature, that most flowers which are fertilised by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit their odour chiefly or exclusively… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
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… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and over their burrows, as seems the… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
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… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
May we not suspect that the vague but very real fears of children, which are quite independent of experience, are the inherited effects of… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“Darwin, landing in Brazil in 1832, had a similar reaction, colored by his reading of his predecessor." Humboldt's glorious descriptions are & will for… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
