For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Seeing every height crowned with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams still distinct, we are led to believe… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the plan of creation or unity of design, etc., and… — 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
I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
It is a truly wonderful fact - the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity - that all animals… — 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
“False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes and dispositions between two or more domestic races,… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed. ... To group all facts… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Till facts be grouped and called there can be no prediction. The only advantage of discovering laws is to foretell what will… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
The plow is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Till facts are grouped & called there can be no prediction. The only advantage of discovering laws is to foretell what will… — 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
I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts. — 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