Erasmus Darwin Quotes

25 quotes in 642 categories

• From the sexual, or amatorial, generation of plants new varieties, or improvements, are frequently obtained; as many of the young plants from seeds are dissimilar…
• Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new animal, but it is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent;…
• The great CREATOR of all things has infinitely diversified the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on…
• Some philosophers have been of opinion that our immortal part acquires during this life certain habits of action or of sentiment, which become forever indissoluble,…
• To respect the cat is the beginning of the aesthetic sense.
• We hence acquire this sublime and interesting idea; that all the calcareous mountains in the world, and all the strata of clay, coal, marl, sand,…
• Life is a forced state! I am surprized that we live, rather than that our friends die.
• There are some modern practitioners, who declaim against medical theory in general, not considering that to think is to theorize; and that no one can…
• A fool, Mr, Edgeworth, is one who has never made an experiment.
• Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!' and which would seem to…
• The colours of insects and many smaller animals contribute to conceal them from the larger ones which prey upon them. Caterpillars which feed on leaves…
• Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form: Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars…
• In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for…
• The mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first.
• Hence when a person is in great pain, the cause of which he cannot remove, he sets his teeth firmly together, or bites some substance…
• So the horns of the stag are sharp to offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or receiving the thrusts of…
• In fact, Darwin's own grandfather anticipated the central tenet of Lamarckism by some seven years: "All animals undergo perpetual transformations; which are in part produced…
• A fool is a man who never tried an experiment in his life.
• So erst the Sage [Pythagoras] with scientific truth In Grecian temples taught the attentive youth; With ceaseless change how restless atoms pass From life to…
• I am sorry the infernal Divinities, who visit mankind with diseases, and are therefore at perpetual war with Doctors, should have prevented my seeing all…

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