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 Image
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds with birds singing on the bushes, with… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure. — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
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
When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine… — 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
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
As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
... not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. — 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
Each organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical ratio . . . each at some period of its life, during… — 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
I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
“I will here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
When the views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. — 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
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
From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
... probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long… — Charles Darwin Copy Share Image
What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the… — 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
