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
Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection. — 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
We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection of the record. The crust of the earth with its embedded… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
It occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made of this question (the origin of the species) by patiently… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in natural history, “Natura non… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how… — 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
“To admit that species generally become rare before they become extinct—to feel no surprise at the comparative rarity of one species with… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“...But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“It has already been stated that various parts in the same individual, which are exactly alike during an early embryonic period, become… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal… — 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
I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work in Natural Selection, which selects exclusively for… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.” — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest. — 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
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
“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 tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the latter are known,… — 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
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
The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think,… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
In however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, as it is one of high importance to all those animals which… — 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
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“The small strength and speed of man, his want of natural weapons, etc., are more than counterbalanced, firstly, by his intellectual powers,… — 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
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
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. — Charles Darwin Copy Share
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
“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… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree — Charles Darwin Copy Share
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects… — Charles Darwin Copy Share
![“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.” quote by Charles Darwin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/958/charles-darwin-507_bounds_i-am-quite-conscious-that-my-speculation_35382.jpg)
