Charles Darwin

I agree with Agassiz that dogs possess something very like conscience.

— Charles Darwin

Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.

— Charles Darwin

I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.

— Charles Darwin

Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles.

— Charles Darwin

It struck me that favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones tend to be destroyed

— Charles Darwin

I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions.

— Charles Darwin

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

— Charles Darwin

Much love much trial, but what an utter desert is life without love.

— Charles Darwin

When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before…

— Charles Darwin

There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.

— Charles Darwin

It may be doubted that there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the…

— Charles Darwin

Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can…

— Charles Darwin

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

— Charles Darwin

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

— Charles Darwin

You will be astonished to find how the whole mental disposition of your children changes with advancing years. A young child and…

— Charles Darwin

“Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants.”

— Charles Darwin

It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin proved "that the subject was in the air," or "that men's…

— Charles Darwin

Man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger, but whether…

— Charles Darwin

But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and…

— Charles Darwin

Extinction has only separated groups: it has by no means made them; for if every form which has ever lived on this…

— Charles Darwin

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

— Charles Darwin

... if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being perserved…

— Charles Darwin

The more I study Nature, the more I become impressed with ever-increasing force that the contrivances and beautiful adaptations slowly acquired through…

— Charles Darwin

Looking to future generations, there is no cause to fear that the social instincts will grow weaker... the social instincts, - the…

— Charles Darwin

“It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature.”

— Charles Darwin

The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile.

— Charles Darwin

Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal.

— Charles Darwin

I cannot see ... evidence of design and beneficence ... There seems to me too much misery in the world.

— Charles Darwin

“He [Erasmus Darwin] used to say that 'unitarianism was a feather-bed to catch a falling Christian.”

— Charles Darwin

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

— Charles Darwin

It is scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the dog.

— Charles Darwin

Nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in a distant country.

— Charles Darwin

“I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.”

— Charles Darwin

Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last it was complete.

— Charles Darwin

I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation.

— Charles Darwin

There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties

— Charles Darwin

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

— Charles Darwin

It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter.

— Charles Darwin

“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.”

— Charles Darwin

I feel like an old warhorse at the sound of a trumpet when I read about the capturing of rare beetles.

— Charles Darwin