Charles Darwin

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--- WIKI
Charles Robert Darwin, (12 February 1809 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contri butions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. By the 1870s, the scientific community and a majority of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favoured competing explanations which gave only a minor role to natural selection, and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life. Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates. Studies at the University of Cambridge (Christ's College) encouraged his passion for natural science. His five-year voyage on established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's conception of gradual geological change, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author. Puzzled by the geographical distri bution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations, and in 1838 conceived his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority. He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of [[On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection|both of their theories]]. Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. In 1871 he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Actions of Worms (1881), he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.
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Charles Darwin

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Darwinism The school of scientific thought arising out of Charles Darwin’s theory of the origin and propagation of species in the animal and plant kingdoms by natural selection, resulting in the survival of the fittest. It was popularized by Thomas Huxley and Ernst Haeckel in the 19th century, and in the 20th century Neo-Darwinism has incorporated knowledge of genetics and mutation into the Darwinian framework.

Darwinism ::: The theory of biological evolution developed by English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. See also History of evolutionary thought.[7]

Evolutionary ethics: Any ethical theory in which the doctrine of evolution plays a leading role, as explaining the origin of the moral sense, and, more especially, as contributing importantly to the determination of the moral standard, e.g. the ethics of Charles Darwin, H. Spencer, L. Stephen. Typical moral standards set up by evolutionists are adaptation, conduciveness to life, social health. Cf. H. Spencer, The Data of Ethics. -- W.K.F.

Evolution ::: As the word is used in theosophy it means the "unwrapping," "unfolding," "rolling out" of latent powersand faculties native to and inherent in the entity itself, its own essential characteristics, or more generallyspeaking, the powers and faculties of its own character: the Sanskrit word for this last conception issvabhava. Evolution, therefore, does not mean merely that brick is added to brick, or experience merelytopped by another experience, or that variation is superadded on other variations -- not at all; for thiswould make of man and of other entities mere aggregates of incoherent and unwelded parts, without anessential unity or indeed any unifying principle.In theosophy evolution means that man has in him (as indeed have all other evolving entities) everythingthat the cosmos has because he is an inseparable part of it. He is its child; one cannot separate man fromthe universe. Everything that is in the universe is in him, latent or active, and evolution is the bringingforth of what is within; and, furthermore, what we call the surrounding milieu, circumstances -- nature, touse the popular word -- is merely the field of action on and in which these inherent qualities function,upon which they act and from which they receive the corresponding reaction, which action and reactioninvariably become a stimulus or spur to further manifestations of energy on the part of the evolvingentity.There are no limits in any direction where evolution can be said to begin, or where we can conceive of itas ending; for evolution in the theosophical conception is but the process followed by the centers ofconsciousness or monads as they pass from eternity to eternity, so to say, in a beginningless and endlesscourse of unceasing growth.Growth is the key to the real meaning of the theosophical teaching of evolution, for growth is but theexpression in detail of the general process of the unfolding of faculty and organ, which the usual wordevolution includes. The only difference between evolution and growth is that the former is a generalterm, and the latter is a specific and particular phase of this procedure of nature.Evolution is one of the oldest concepts and teachings of the archaic wisdom, although in ancient days theconcept was usually expressed by the word emanation. There is indeed a distinction, and an importantone, to be drawn between these two words, but it is a distinction arising rather in viewpoint than in anyactual fundamental difference. Emanation is a distinctly more accurate and descriptive word fortheosophists to use than evolution is, but unfortunately emanation is so ill-understood in the Occident,that perforce the accepted term is used to describe the process of interior growth expanding into andmanifesting itself in the varying phases of the developing entity. Theosophists, therefore, are, strictlyspeaking, rather emanationists than evolutionists; and from this remark it becomes immediately obviousthat the theosophist is not a Darwinist, although admitting that in certain secondary or tertiary senses anddetails there is a modicum of truth in Charles Darwin's theory adopted and adapted from the FrenchmanLamarck. The key to the meaning of evolution, therefore, in theosophy is the following: the core of everyorganic entity is a divine monad or spirit, expressing its faculties and powers through the ages in variousvehicles which change by improving as the ages pass. These vehicles are not physical bodies alone, butalso the interior sheaths of consciousness which together form man's entire constitution extending fromthe divine monad through the intermediate ranges of consciousness to the physical body. The evolvingentity can become or show itself to be only what it already essentially is in itself -- therefore evolution isa bringing out or unfolding of what already preexists, active or latent, within. (See also Involution)

Evolutionism: This is the view that the universe and life in all of its manifestations and nature in all of their aspects are the product of development. Apart from the religious ideas of initial creation by fiat, this doctrine finds variety of species to be the result of change and modification and growth and adaptation rather than from some form of special creation of each of the myriads of organic types and even of much in the inorganic realm. Contrary to the popular notion, evolution is not a product of modern thought. There has been an evolution of evolutionary hypotheses from earliest Indian and Greek speculation down to the latest pronouncement of scientific theory. Thales believed all life to have had a marine origin and Anaximander, Anaximenes, Empedocles, the Atomists and Aristotle all spoke in terms of development and served to lay a foundation for a true theory of evolution. It is in the work of Charles Darwin, however, that clarity and proof is presented for the explanation of his notion of natural selection and for the crystallization of evolution as a prime factor in man's explanation of all phases of his mundane existence. The chief criticism leveled at the evolutionists, aside from the attacks of the religionists, is based upon their tendency to forget that not all evolution means progress. See Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Thomas Hemy Huxley, Natural Selection, Evolutionary Ethics. Cf. A. Lalande, L'Idee de dissolution opposee a celle de l'evolution (1899), revised ed. (1930): Les Illusions evolutionistes. -- L.E.D.

Evolution: The development of organization. The working out of a definite end; action by final causation. For Comte, the successive stages of historical development are necessary. In biology, the series of phylogenetic changes in the structure or behavior of organisms, best exemplified by Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. In cosmology, cosmogony is the theory of the generation of the existing universe in space and time. Opposite of: epigenesis. See Emergent evolution, Evolutionism. Cf. T. Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin. -- J.K.F.

Natural Selection: This is the corner stone of the evolutionary hypothesis of Charles Darwin. He found great variation in and among types as a result of his extensive biological investigations and accounted for the modifications, not bvysome act of special creation or supernatural intervention, but by the descent, generation after generation, of modified species selected to survive and reproduce the more useful and the more successfully adapted to the environmental struggle for existence. He elaborated a corollary to this general theory in his idea of sexual selection. See Evolutionism, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer. -- L.E.D.

Spencer, Herbert: (1820-1903) was the great English philosopher who devoted a life time to the formulation and execution of a plan to follow the idea of development as a first principle through all the avenues of human thought. A precursor of Darwin with his famous notion of all organic evolution as a change "from homogeneity to heterogenity," from the simple to the complex, he nevertheless was greatly influenced by the Darwinian hypothesis and employed its arguments in his monumental works in biology, psychology, sociology and ethics. He aimed to interpret life, mind and society in terms of matter, motion and force. In politics, he evidenced from his earliest writings a strong bias for individualism. See Evolutionism, Charles Darwin. -- L.E.D.

Structural Theories of Mind: See Structuralism. Struggle For Existence: This is given by Charles Darwin as a premise for his evolutionary hypothesis of natural selection. There is constant struggle in a species resultant from the over production of offspring. This notion is an outgrowth of the influence of Malthus on Darwin. Darwin does not mean actual or necessary combat at all stages, but requisite dependence of one upon another and of each upon all factors in the environment leading to the natural selection of the fittest. See Evolutionism, Natural Selection, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Thomas Henry Huxley. -- L.E.D.

QUOTES [9 / 9 - 764 / 764]

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1 Ken Wilber
1 Editors of Discovery Magazine

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1:But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.
~ Charles Darwin,

2:Man in many respects may be compared with those animals which have long been domesticated.
~ Charles Darwin, 1871,

3:The love for all living creatures is the most notable attribute of man." ~ Charles Darwin, (1809 - 19 April 1882) English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution, Wikipedia,

4:We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us." ~ Charles Darwin, (1809 - 1882) English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution, Wikipedia,

5:I never dreamed that islands, about fifty or sixty miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted.
~ Charles Darwin,

6:It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ~ Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man,

7:Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage. Although some species may be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in numbers, all cannot do so, for the world would not hold them. ~ Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species,

8:science reading list :::
1. and 2. The Voyage of the Beagle (1845) and The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin [tie
3. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) by Isaac Newton (1687)
4. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei (1632)
5. De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) by Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)
6. Physica (Physics) by Aristotle (circa 330 B.C.)
7. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1543)
8. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein (1916)
9. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
10. One Two Three . . . Infinity by George Gamow (1947)
11. The Double Helix by James D. Watson (1968)
12. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrodinger (1944)
13. The Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan (1973)
14. The Insect Societies by Edward O. Wilson (1971)
15. The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg (1977)
16. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
17. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould (1981)
18. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (1985)
19. The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1814)
20. The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard P Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands (1963)
21. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey et al. (1948)
22. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey (1983)
23. Under a Lucky Star by Roy Chapman Andrews (1943)
24. Micrographia by Robert Hooke (1665)
25. Gaia by James Lovelock (1979)
~ Editors of Discovery Magazine, Website,

9:There is one point in particular I would like to single out and stress, namely, the notion of evolution. It is common to assume that one of the doctrines of the perennial philosophy... is the idea of involution-evolution. That is, the manifest world was created as a "fall" or "breaking away" from the Absolute (involution), but that all things are now returning to the Absolute (via evolution). In fact, the doctrine of progressive temporal return to Source (evolution) does not appear anywhere, according to scholars as Joseph Campbell, until the axial period (i.e. a mere two thousand years ago). And even then, the idea was somewhat convoluted and backwards. The doctrine of the yugas, for example, sees the world as proceeding through various stages of development, but the direction is backward: yesterday was the Golden Age, and time ever since has been a devolutionary slide downhill, resulting in the present-day Kali-Yuga. Indeed, this notion of a historical fall from Eden was ubiquitous during the axial period; the idea that we are, at this moment, actually evolving toward Spirit was simply not conceived in any sort of influential fashion.

But sometime during the modern era-it is almost impossible to pinpoint exactly-the idea of history as devolution (or a fall from God) was slowly replaced by the idea of history as evolution (or a growth towards God). We see it explicitly in Schelling (1775-1854); Hegel (1770-1831) propounded the doctrine with a genius rarely equaled; Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) made evolution a universal law, and his friend Charles Darwin (1809-1882) applied it to biology. We find it next appearing in Aurobindo (1872-1950), who gave perhaps its most accurate and profound spiritual context, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) who made it famous in the West.

But here is my point: we might say that the idea of evolution as return-to-Spirit is part of the perennial philosophy, but the idea itself, in any adequate form, is no more than a few hundred years old. It might be 'ancient' as timeless, but it is certainly not ancient as "old."...

This fundamental shift in the sense or form of the perennial philosophy-as represented in, say, Aurobindo, Hegel, Adi Da, Schelling, Teilhard de Chardin, Radhakrishnan, to name a few-I should like to call the "neoperennial philosophy." ~ Ken Wilber, The Eye Of Spirit,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:We are optimists, until we are not. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

2:The normal food of man is vegetable. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

3:The willing horse is always overworked. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

4:Light may be shed on man and his origins. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

5:We have happy days, remember good dinners. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

6:Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

7:Free will is to mind what chance is to matter. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

8:Great is the power of steady misrepresentation ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

9:And hail their queen, fair regent of the night. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

10:Origin Of Species, Natural Selection, Strongest ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

11:Some call it evolution, And others call it God. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

12:I long to set foot where no man has trod before. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

13:Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

14:We behold the face of nature bright with gladness. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

15:I love fools' experiments. I am always making them. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

16:One hand has surely worked throughout the universe. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

17:We fancied even that the bushes smelt unpleasantly. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

18:I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

19:A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World: the Evolution. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

20:Evolutionary Writings: including the Autobiographies. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

21:Progress has been much more general than retrogression ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

22:Music was known and understood before words were spoken. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

23:It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

24:... all nature is perverse & will not do as I wish it. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

25:I ought, or I ought not, constitute the whole of morality. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

26:Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

27:On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

28:Building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

29:Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

30:Sympathy will have been increased through natural selection ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

31:I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

32:It's not the strongest, but the most adaptable that survive. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

33:The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

34:A language, like a species, when extinct, never... reappears. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

35:A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

36:Mathematics seems to endow one with something like a new sense. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

37:Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

38:Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

39:The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals: the Evolution. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

40:Much love much trial, but what an utter desert is life without love. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

41:The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

42:The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

43:Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

44:An agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

45:I agree with Agassiz that dogs possess something very like conscience. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

46:Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

47:He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

48:We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

49:I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

50:Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last it was complete. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

51:It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the plan of ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

52:The season of love is that of battle. The roots of these fights run deep. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

53:... for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

54:creation or unity of design, etc., and to think that we give an explanation ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

55:The Times is getting more detestable (but that is too weak word) than ever. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

56:The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

57:Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

58:Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

59:I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

60:Life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

61:[Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

62:How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

63:A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

64:Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

65:Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

66:A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, - a mere heart of stone. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

67:If every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

68:Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

69:Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee and spirituous liqueurs. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

70:The more one thinks, the more one feels the hopeless immensity of man's ignorance. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

71:A cell is a complex structure, with its investing membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

72:I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

73:It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

74:Animals manifestly enjoy excitement, and suffer from annul and may exhibit curiosity. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

75:Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

76:I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

77:... not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

78:A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

79:It is scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the dog. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

80:Sympathy for the lowest animals is one of the noblest virtues with which man is endowed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

81:Dow 36,000. Book by James K. Glassman, Kevin A. Hassett, www.cnn.com. September 14, 1999. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

82:I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

83:Nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in a distant country. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

84:In my simplicity, I remember wondering why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

85:Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

86:The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

87:If I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much as I have accomplished. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

88:Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embellishment. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

89:Man, wonderful man, must collapse, into nature's cauldron, he is no deity, he is no exception. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

90:we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

91:As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

92:I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

93:Our faculties are more fitted to recognize the wonderful structure of a beetle than a Universe. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

94:Such simple instincts as bees making a beehive could be sufficient to overthrow my whole theory. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

95:Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

96:There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

97:Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

98:Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

99:I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

100:It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

101:The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

102:I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

103:It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

104:The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

105:Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

106:I feel like an old warhorse at the sound of a trumpet when I read about the capturing of rare beetles. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

107:The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

108:The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

109:The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

110:Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than humans would at first suppose. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

111:It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

112:It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

113:Even people who aren’t geniuses can outthink the rest of mankind if they develop certain thinking habits. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

114:Got a problem? Our Evolutionary Agony Aunt can help by Ian Sample, www.theguardian.com. December 2, 2009. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

115:I cannot see ... evidence of design and beneficence ... There seems to me too much misery in the world. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

116:If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

117:On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

118:Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

119:The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

120:My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

121:On your life, underestimating the proclivities of finches is likely to lead to great internal hemorrhaging. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

122:I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

123:We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

124:I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance Huxley ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

125:It is impossible to concieve of this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

126:Science and religion need a truce by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, www.theguardian.com. August 24, 2009. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

127:Not one change of species into another is on record ... we cannot prove that a single species has been changed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

128:It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public, and I am sure that the views are original. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

129:The age-old and noble thought of &

130:I always make special notes about evidence that contridicts me: supportive evidence I can remember without trying. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

131:To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

132:A republic cannot succeed, till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

133:... he who remains passive when over-whelmed with grief loses his best chance of recovering his elasticity of mind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

134:The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

135:There is a grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful are being evolved ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

136:An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

137:Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

138:Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

139:If man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own reception. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

140:What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature! ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

141:I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

142:Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

143:Language is an art, like brewing or baking... . It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

144:Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

145:What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame; the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

146:With mammals the male appears to win the female much more through the law of battle than through the display of his charms. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

147:There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

148:Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

149:Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

150:I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

151:I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent God would have designedly created... that a cat should play with mice. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

152:Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

153:The young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

154:Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

155:The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

156:To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

157:At no time am I a quick thinker or writer: whatever I have done in science has solely been by long pondering, patience and industry. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

158:If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

159:I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

160:On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects: And on the Good Effects of Intercrossing. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

161:One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

162:The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

163:In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

164:Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

165:A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

166:I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

167:Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

168:It at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

169:It's an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed but ... most people just don't get it - I must be a very bad explainer ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

170:As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

171:From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed. ... To group all facts under some general laws. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

172:I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

173:I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

174:... conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

175:Not one great country can be named, from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

176:Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

177:Even when we are quite alone, how often do we think with pleasure or pain of what others think of us - of their imagined approbation or disapprobation. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

178:Farewell Australia! You ... are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

179:In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

180:Daily it is forced home on the mind of the biologist that nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of this earth. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

181:I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work in Natural Selection, which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

182:I conclude that the musical notes and rhythms were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

183:The limit of man s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

184:... probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

185:The young blush much more freely than the old but not during infancy, which is remarkable, as we know that infants at a very early age redden from passion. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

186:The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

187:Englishmen rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief; whereas in some parts of the Continent the men shed tears much more readily and freely. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

188:It may be doubted that there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

189:In the survival of favoured individuals and races, during the constantly-recurring struggle for existence, we see a powerful and ever-acting form of selection. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

190:Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

191:Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy the interposition of a great deity. More humble and I believe true to consider him created from animals. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

192:Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, ... I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

193:Even the humblest mammal's strong sexual, parental, and social instincts give rise to &

194:We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

195:So great is the economy of nature, that most flowers which are fertilised by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit their odour chiefly or exclusively in the evening. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

196:The man that created the theory of evolution by natural selection was thrown out by his Dad because he wanted him to be a doctor. GAWD, parents haven't changed much. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

197:From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

198: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. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

199:The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

200:A surprising number [of novels] have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily-against which a law ought to be passed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

201:The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

202:I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brain... & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

203:It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist. ... I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

204:We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

205:You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

206:In regard to the amount of difference between the races, we must make some allowance for our nice powers of discrimination gained by a long habit of observing ourselves. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

207:Natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight successive favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification; it can act only by very short steps. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

208:When the sexes differ in beauty, in the power of singing, or in producing what I have called instrumental music, it is almost invariably the male which excels the female. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

209:To my deep mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family." ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

210:As the sense of smell is so intimately connected with that of taste, it is not surprising that an excessively bad odour should excite wretching or vomitting in some persons. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

211:The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith? ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

212:Till facts are grouped & called there can be no prediction. The only advantage of discovering laws is to foretell what will happen & to see bearing of scattered facts. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

213:A novel according to my taste, does not come into the moderately good class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love - and if a pretty woman, all the better. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

214:We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

215:At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

216:... I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

217:It strikes me that all our knowledge about the structure of our Earth is very much like what an old hen would know of the hundred-acre field in a corner of which she is scratching. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

218: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 a single small volume, I always chose Milton. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

219:With highly civilised nations continued progress depends in a subordinate degree on natural selection; for such nations do not supplant and exterminate one another as do savage tribes. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

220:... I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can.— ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

221:I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

222:About weak points [of the Origin] I agree. The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations, my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

223:I suppose you are two fathoms deep in mathematics, and if you are, then God help you. For so am I, only with this difference: I stick fast in the mud at the bottom, and there I shall remain. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

224:Man himself cannot express love and humility by external signs, so plainly as does a dog, when with drooping ears, hanging lips, flexuous body, and wagging tail, he meets his beloved master. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

225:A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

226:Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

227:The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

228:I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

229:Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such care. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

230:Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult&

231:On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and comparing them to placental mammals: “An unbeliever . . . might exclaim &

232:Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

233:I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

234:When the views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly forsee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

235:Blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. Monkeys redden from passion, but it would require an overwhelming amount of evidence to make us believe that any animal could blush. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

236:If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly have been said to have done so instinctively. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

237:It has been a bitter mortification for me to digest the conclusion that the "race is for the strong" and that I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in science. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

238:But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

239:I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

240:May we not suspect that the vague but very real fears of children, which are quite independent of experience, are the inherited effects of real dangers and abject superstitions during ancient savage times? ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

241:Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

242:It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another... we consider those, where the intellectual faculties most developed as the highest. - A bee doubtless would [use] ... instincts as a criteria. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

243:Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

244:Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last was complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

245:If I had life to live over again, I would give my life to poetry, to music, to literature, and to art to make life richer and happier. In my youth I steeled myself against them and thought them so much waste. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

246:The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

247:When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

248:I believe we were all glad to leave New Zealand. It is not a pleasant place. Amongst the natives there is absent that charming simplicity ... . and the greater part of the English are the very refuse of society. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

249:I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

250:There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

251:People complain of the unequal distribution of wealth [but it is a far greater] injustice that any one man should have the power to write so many brilliant essays... There is no one who writes like [Thomas Huxley]. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

252:If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

253:It occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made of this question (the origin of the species) by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

254:We may confidently come to the conclusion, that the forces which slowly and by little starts uplift continents, and that those which at successive periods pour forth volcanic matter from open orifices, are identical. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

255:It is a truly wonderful fact - the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity - that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

256:There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties... The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

257:A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct actions of external conditions, and so forth. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

258:I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things; and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever - much cleverer than the discoverers - never originate anything. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

259:False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

260:You will be astonished to find how the whole mental disposition of your children changes with advancing years. A young child and the same when nearly grown, sometimes differ almost as much as do a caterpillar and butterfly. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

261:It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

262:What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern? ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

263:But Geology carries the day: it is like the pleasure of gambling, speculating, on first arriving, what the rocks may be; I often mentally cry out 3 to 1 Tertiary against primitive; but the latter have hitherto won all the bets. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

264:The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for , @wisdomtrove the existence of God. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

265:It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

266:The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

267:It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

268:So in regard to mental qualities, their transmission is manifest in our dogs, horses and other domestic animals. Besides special tastes and habits, general intelligence, courage, bad and good tempers. etc., are certainly transmitted. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

269:During my second year at Edinburgh [1826-27] I attended Jameson's lectures on Geology and Zoology, but they were incredible dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

270:He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation ... Man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common progenitor. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

271:I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce [direct] evidence of one species changing into another, but I believe that this view is in the main correct, because so many phenomena can thus be grouped end explained. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

272:I fully subscribe to the judgement of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animal, the moral sense of conscience is by far the most important... .It is the most noble of all the attributes of man. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

273:Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

274:The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

275:It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attraction. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

276:Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

277:I shall always feel respect for every one who has written a book, let it be what it may, for I had no idea of the trouble which trying to write common English could cost one—And alas there yet remains the worst part of all correcting the press. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

278:The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection of the record. The crust of the earth with its embedded remains must not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but as a poor collection made at hazard and at rare intervals. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

279:If I had to pick a hero, it would be Charles Darwin&

280:From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the grouping of stars in constellations. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

281:If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and over their burrows, as seems the case, they deserve to be called intelligent; for they act in nearly the same manner as would man under similar circumstances. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

282:... one doubts existence of free will [because] every action determined by heredity, constitution, example of others or teaching of others." "This view should teach one profound humility, one deserves no credit for anything... nor ought one to blame others. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

283:I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

284:In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

285:When primeval man ﬁrst used ﬂint stones for any purpose, he would have accidentally splintered them, and would then have used the sharp fragments. From this step it would be a small one to break the ﬂints on purpose and not a very wide step to fashion them rudely. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

286:Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the latter are known, or believed to be connected at the present day by intermediate gradations whereas species were formerly thus connected. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

287:We feel surprise when travellers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals! ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

288:It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows from the advance of science. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

289:Nevertheless so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the forms of life! ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

290:In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God ... I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

291:On Tralfamadore, says Billy Pilgrim, there isn't much interest in Jesus Christ. The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Tralfamadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin - who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements. So it goes. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove

292:As some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

293:This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection and would be left a fluctuating element. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

294:Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd [should] be forestalled ... I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

295:After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in any way on the variation of animals and plants under domestication and nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

296:I trust and believe that the time spent in this voyage ... will produce its full worth in Natural History; and it appears to me the doing what little we can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

297:We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

298:Why does man regret, even though he may endeavour to banish any such regret, that he has followed the one natural impulse, rather than the other; and why does he further feel that he ought to regret his conduct? Man in this respect differs profoundly from the lower animals. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

299:This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

300:When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

301:Traveling ought also to teach him distrust; but at the same time he will discover, how many truly kind-hearted people there are, with whom he never before had, or ever again will have any further communication, who yet are ready to offer him the most disinterested assistance. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

302:History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

303:A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid; one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

304:The western nations of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilization, owe little or none of their superiority to direct inheritance from the old Greeks, though they owe much to the written works of that wonderful people. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

305:The more efficient causes of progress seem to consist of a good education during youth whilst the brain is impressible, and of a high standard of excellence, inculcated by the ablest and best men, embodied in the laws, customs and traditions of the nation, and enforced by public opinion. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

306:But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

307:I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

308:A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

309:I often had to run very quickly to be on time, and from being a fleet runner was generally successful; but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

310:The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career; yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me 30 miles to Shrewsbury, which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

311:I find in the domestic duck that the bones of the wing weigh less and the bones of the leg more, in proportion to the whole skeleton, than do the same bones in the wild duck; and this change may be safely attributed to the domestic duck flying much less, and walking more, than its wild parents. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

312:I liked the thought of being a country clergyman. Accordingly I read with care Pearson on the Creed and a few other books on divinity; and as I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible, I soon persuaded myself that our Creed must be fully accepted. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

313:Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

314:I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

315:Who when examining in the cabinet of the entomologist the gay and exotic butterflies, and singular cicadas, will associate with these lifeless objects, the ceaseless harsh music of the latter, and the lazy flight of the former - the sure accompaniments of the still, glowing noonday of the tropics. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

316:Jealousy was plainly exhibited when I fondled a large doll, and when I weighed his infant sister, he being then 15? months old. Seeing how strong a feeling of jealousy is in dogs, it would probably be exhibited by infants at any earlier age than just specified if they were tried in a fitting manner ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

317:... I believe there exists, & I feel within me, an instinct for the truth, or knowledge or discovery, of something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue, & that our having such an instinct is reason enough for scientific researches without any practical results ever ensuing from them. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

318:Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, ... temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

319:Each organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical ratio . . . each at some period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction . . . The vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

320:The love of a dog for his master is notorious; in the agony of death he has been known to caress his master, and everyone has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

321:But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

322:The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

323:The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

324:Describing laughter: The sound is produced by a deep inspiration followed by short, interrupted, spasmodic contractions of the chest, and especially the diaphragm... the mouth is open more or less widely, with the corners drawn much backwards, as well as a little upwards; and the upper lip is somewhat raised. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

325:Ultimately a highly complex sentiment, having its first origin in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, confirmed by instruction and habit, all combined, constitute our moral sense or conscience. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

326:I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

327:On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in natural history, “Natura non facit saltum.” This canon, if we look only to the present inhabitants of the world, is not strictly correct, but if we include all those of past times, it must by my theory be strictly true. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

328:It is not the conscience which raises a blush, for a man may sincerely regret some slight fault committed in solitude, or he may suffer the deepest remorse for an undetected crime, but he will not blush... It is not the sense of guilt, but the thought that others think or know us to be guilty which crimsons the face. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

329:We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm&

330:Even Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, and Albert Einstein made serious mistakes. But the scientific enterprise arranges things so that teamwork prevails: What one of us, even the most brilliant among us, misses, another of us, even someone much less celebrated and capable, may detect and rectify. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove

331:To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

332:Some few, and I am one of them, even wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against slavery. In the long-run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity. Great God! how I should like to see the greatest curse on earth - slavery - abolished! ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

333:For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

334:[Herschel and Humboldt] stirred up in me a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science. No one or a dozen other books influenced me nearly so much as these two. I copied out from Humboldt long passages about Teneriffe and read them aloud on one of [my walking excursions]. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

335:There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

336:I look at the natural geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

337:The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than the woman. Whether deep thought, reason, or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands... ..We may also infer... ..The average mental power in man must be above that of woman. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

338:That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes. Which is more likely, that pain and evil are the result of an all-powerful and good God, or the product of uncaring natural forces? The presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

339:The traveler may feel assured, he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates. In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humored patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the best of every occurrence. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

340:The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent deity. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

341:It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin proved "that the subject was in the air," or "that men's minds were prepared for it." I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

342:As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

343:My books have sold largely in England, have been translated into many languages, and passed through several editions in foreign countries. I have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

344:I had gradually come, by this time [1839-01], to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc. and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

345:Whenever I have found that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfected, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that &

346:A celebrated author and divine has written to me that he has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that he created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

347:Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relationship to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

348:If a person asked my advice, before undertaking a long voyage, my answer would depend upon his possessing a decided taste for some branch of knowledge, which could by this means be advanced. No doubt it is a high satisfaction to behold various countries and the many races of mankind, but the pleasures gained at the time do not counterbalance the evils. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

349:The plow is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly plowed, and still continues to be thus plowed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

350:In however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, as it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and defend one another, it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

351:The explanation of types of structure in classes - as resulting from the will of the Deity, to create animals on certain plans - is no explanation. It has not the character of a physical law and is therefore utterly useless. It foretells nothing because we know nothing of the will of the Deity, how it acts and whether constant or inconstant like that of man. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

352:To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both."—Bacon: "Advancement of Learning". ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

353:... if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being perserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offsping similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

354:I am not very sceptical, — a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the progress of science. A good deal of scepticism in a scientific man is advisable to avoid much loss of time, but I have met with not a few men, who, I feel sure, have often thus been deterred from experiment or observations, which would have proved directly or indirectly serviceable . ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

355:About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service! ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

356:One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

357:Seeing every height crowned with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams still distinct, we are led to believe that within a period, geologically recent, the unbroken ocean was here spread out. Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact — that mystery of mysteries — the first appearance of new beings on this earth. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

358:It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

359:Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

360:Charles Darwin [is my personal favorite Fellow of the Royal Society]. I suppose as a physical scientist I ought to have chosen Newton. He would have won hands down in an IQ test, but if you ask who was the most attractive personality then Darwin is the one you'd wish to meet. Newton was solitary and reclusive, even vain and vindictive in his later years when he was president of the society. ~ martin-rees, @wisdomtrove

361:Every one must be struck with astonishment, when he first beholds one of these vast rings of coral-rock, often many leagues in diameter, here and there surmounted by a low verdant island with dazzling white shores, bathed on the outside by the foaming breakers of the ocean, and on the inside surrounding a calm expanse of water, which, from reflection, is of a bright but pale green color. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

362:Looking to future generations, there is no cause to fear that the social instincts will grow weaker... the social instincts, - the prime principle of man's moral constitution - with the aid of active intellectual powers and the effects of habit, naturally lead to the golden rule, "As ye would that men should do to you; do ye to them likewise"; and this lies at the foundation of morality. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

363:Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind... We behold the face of nature bright with gladness... We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

364:I have rarely read anything which has interested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a quarter of the book proper. From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

365:It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about and with worms crawling through the damp earth and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms so different from each other and dependent on each other and so complex a manner have all been produced by laws acting around us. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

366:I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

367:I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, &

368:As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been specially created and adapted for that country, being beaten and supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

369:As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

370:I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of Spencer's excellent expression of &

371:After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.‎ ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

372:The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

373:The several difficulties here discussed, namely our not finding in the successive formations infinitely numerous transitional links between the many species which now exist or have existed; the sudden manner in which whole groups of species appear in our European formations; the almost entire absence, as at present known, of fossiliferous formations beneath the Silurian strata, are all undoubtedly of the gravest nature. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

374:Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes and dispositions between two or more domestic races, or between nearly-allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that all are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

375:The theory which I would offer, is simply, that as the land with the attached reefs subsides very gradually from the action of subterranean causes, the coral-building polypi soon raise again their solid masses to the level of the water: but not so with the land; each inch lost is irreclaimably gone; as the whole gradually sinks, the water gains foot by foot on the shore, till the last and highest peak is finally submerged. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

376:It is certain that there may be extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small absolute mass of nervous matter: thus the wonderfully diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants are notorious, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so large as the quarter of a small pin's head. Under this point of view, the brain of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of a man. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

377:It is really laughable to see what different ideas are prominent in various naturalists' minds, when they speak of &

378:How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far &

379:Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine... I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

380:Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

381:Extinction has only separated groups: it has by no means made them; for if every form which has ever lived on this earth were suddenly to reappear, though it would be quite impossible to give definitions by which each group could be distinguished from other groups, as all would blend together by steps as fine as those between the finest existing varieties, nevertheless a natural classification, or at least a natural arrangement, would be possible. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

382:Let's find and remedy all our weaknesses before our enemies get a chance to say a word. That is what Charles Darwin did. ... When Darwin completed the manuscript of his immortal book "The Origin Of Species" he realized that the publication of his revolutionary concept of creation would rock the intellectual and religious worlds. So he became his own critic and spent another 15 years checking his data, challenging his reasoning, and criticizing his conclusions. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove

383:With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

384:How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

385:As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

386:I have just finished my sketch of my species theory. If as I believe that my theory is true & if it be accepted even by one competent judge, it will be a considerable step in science. I therefore write this, in case of my sudden death, as my most solemn & last request, which I am sure you will consider the same as if legally entered in my will, that you will devote 400£ to its publication & further will yourself, or through Hensleigh [Wedgwood], take trouble in promoting it. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

387:For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs-as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

388:The lower animals, on the other hand, must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be rendered stronger, or acquire more effective teeth or claws, in order to defend themselves from new enemies; or they must be reduced in size so as to escape detection and danger. When they migrate into a colder climate they must become clothed with thicker fur, or have their constitutions altered. If they fail to be thus modified, they will cease to exist. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

389:The more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become, - that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, - that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, - that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses; - by such reflections as these... I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

390:It is well-known that those who have charge of young infants, that it is difficult to feel sure when certain movements about their mouths are really expressive; that is when they really smile. Hence I carefully watched my own infants. One of them at the age of forty-five days, and being in a happy frame of mind, smiled... I observed the same thing on the following day: but on the third day the child was not quite well and there was no trace of a smile, and this renders it probable that the previous smiles were real. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

391:The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

392:At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

393:I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

394:At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a &

395:But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

396:It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo stillmore complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

397:I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

398:J.S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, "Utilitarianism," of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality," but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

399:Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

400:The more I study nature, the more I become impressed with ever-increasing force with the conclusion, that the contrivances and beautiful adaptations slowly acquired through each part occasionally varying in a slight degree but in many ways, with the preservation or natural selection of those variations which are beneficial to the organism under the complex and ever-varying conditions of life, transcend in an incomparable degree the contrivances and adaptations which the most fertile imagination of man could suggest with unlimited time at his disposal. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

401:I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to show why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower from, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

402:Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any language. Especial attention was paid to versemaking, and this I could never do well. I had many friends, and got together a good collection of old verses, which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could work into any subject. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

403:Of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important. This sense, as Mackintosh remarks, "has a rightful supremacy over every other principle of human action"; it is summed up in that short but imperious word "ought," so full of high significance. It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment's hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, impelled simply by the deep feeling of right or duty, to sacrifice it in some great cause. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

404:My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain that alone on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine would not, I suppose, have thus suffered, and if I had to live my life over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

405:Man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger, but whether relatively to the larger size of his body, in comparison with that of woman, has not, I believe been fully ascertained. In woman the face is rounder; the jaws and the base of the skull smaller; the outlines of her body rounder, in parts more prominent; and her pelvis is broader than in man; but this latter character may perhaps be considered rather as a primary than a secondary sexual character. She comes to maturity at an earlier age than man. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove

406:Over the past 10,000 years, Homo sapiens has grown so accustomed to being the only human species that it’s hard for us to conceive of any other possibility. Our lack of brothers and sisters makes it easier to imagine that we are the epitome of creation, and that a chasm separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. When Charles Darwin indicated that Homo sapiens was just another kind of animal, people were outraged. Even today many refuse to believe it. Had the Neanderthals survived, would we still imagine ourselves to be a creature apart? Perhaps this is exactly why our ancestors wiped out the Neanderthals. They were too familiar to ignore, but too different to tolerate. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:immutable productions ~ Charles Darwin,

2:Natura non facit saltum. ~ Charles Darwin,

3:Only the fittest will survive. ~ Charles Darwin,

4:It is uphill work writing books ~ Charles Darwin,

5:The man who walks with Henslow. ~ Charles Darwin,

6:I am not the least afraid to die ~ Charles Darwin,

7:Celui qui n'évolue pas disparaît. ~ Charles Darwin,

8:It is like confessing to a murder. ~ Charles Darwin,

9:We are optimists, until we are not. ~ Charles Darwin,

10:The normal food of man is vegetable. ~ Charles Darwin,

11:Charles Darwin, who had witnessed the ~ Jon Lee Anderson,

12:The willing horse is always overworked. ~ Charles Darwin,

13:the works of Nature are to those of Art. ~ Charles Darwin,

14:Light may be shed on man and his origins. ~ Charles Darwin,

15:We have happy days, remember good dinners. ~ Charles Darwin,

16:Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can. ~ Charles Darwin,

17:Free will is to mind what chance is to matter. ~ Charles Darwin,

18:Great is the power of steady misrepresentation ~ Charles Darwin,

19:And hail their queen, fair regent of the night. ~ Charles Darwin,

20:Some call it evolution, And others call it God. ~ Charles Darwin,

21:evolution is written on the wings of butterflies ~ Charles Darwin,

22:I long to set foot where no man has trod before. ~ Charles Darwin,

23:Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws. ~ Charles Darwin,

24:We behold the face of nature bright with gladness. ~ Charles Darwin,

25:I love fools' experiments. I am always making them. ~ Charles Darwin,

26:One hand has surely worked throughout the universe. ~ Charles Darwin,

27:We fancied even that the bushes smelt unpleasantly. ~ Charles Darwin,

28:I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men ~ Charles Darwin,

29:In Switzerland the slaves and masters work together, ~ Charles Darwin,

30:...all nature is perverse & will not do as I wish it. ~ Charles Darwin,

31:How do you know that God didn't speak to Charles Darwin? ~ Jack Lemmon,

32:Progress has been much more general than retrogression ~ Charles Darwin,

33:Music was known and understood before words were spoken. ~ Charles Darwin,

34:Somewhere, Charles Darwin nodded and smiled a knowing smile. ~ David Wong,

35:It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance. ~ Charles Darwin,

36:I ought, or I ought not, constitute the whole of morality. ~ Charles Darwin,

37:Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. ~ Charles Darwin,

38:Light will be thrown on the origin of men and his history. ~ Charles Darwin,

39:The imagination is one of the highest prerogatives of man. ~ Charles Darwin,

40:This prophecy has turned out entirely and miserably wrong. ~ Charles Darwin,

41:Building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice. ~ Charles Darwin,

42:Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die. ~ Charles Darwin,

43:Sympathy will have been increased through natural selection ~ Charles Darwin,

44:I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age. ~ Charles Darwin,

45:It's not the strongest, but the most adaptable that survive. ~ Charles Darwin,

46:The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. ~ Charles Darwin,

47:unusual degree. This family became divided eight generations ~ Charles Darwin,

48:A language, like a species, when extinct, never... reappears. ~ Charles Darwin,

49:A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth ~ Charles Darwin,

50:If it wasn't for seasickness, all the world would be sailors! ~ Charles Darwin,

51:Species that struggle to adapt to survive will become extinct ~ Charles Darwin,

52:A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth. ~ Charles Darwin,

53:One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges... ~ Charles Darwin,

54:I believe man . . . in the same predicament with other animals. ~ Charles Darwin,

55:Mathematics seems to endow one with something like a new sense. ~ Charles Darwin,

56:Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions. ~ Charles Darwin,

57:Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. ~ Charles Darwin,

58:ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: ~ Charles Darwin,

59:We don’t want to be the conquistadors. We want to be Charles Darwin. ~ Lydia Millet,

60:Much love much trial, but what an utter desert is life without love. ~ Charles Darwin,

61:Whilst Man, however well-behaved,
At best is but a monkey shaved! ~ Charles Darwin,

62:...ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge... ~ Charles Darwin,

63:The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. ~ Charles Darwin,

64:Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal. ~ Charles Darwin,

65:An agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind. ~ Charles Darwin,

66:I agree with Agassiz that dogs possess something very like conscience. ~ Charles Darwin,

67:Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence. ~ Charles Darwin,

68:Tan evidente es que las buenas y las malas cualidades son hereditarias ~ Charles Darwin,

69:We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence ~ Charles Darwin,

70:Wherever the European had trod, death seemed to pursue the aboriginal. ~ Charles Darwin,

71:He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke. ~ Charles Darwin,

72:We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence. ~ Charles Darwin,

73:En realidad, dudo de que la compasión sea una cualidad natural o innata. ~ Charles Darwin,

74:I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects. ~ Charles Darwin,

75:Die Tiere empfinden wie der Mensch Freude und Schmerz, Glück und Unglück. ~ Charles Darwin,

76:Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last it was complete. ~ Charles Darwin,

77:...for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear. ~ Charles Darwin,

78:It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the plan of ~ Charles Darwin,

79:The season of love is that of battle. The roots of these fights run deep. ~ Charles Darwin,

80:I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects... ~ Charles Darwin,

81:The Times is getting more detestable (but that is too weak word) than ever. ~ Charles Darwin,

82:The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason. ~ Charles Darwin,

83:a lie can run around the internet before the truth has logged on to facebook ~ Charles Darwin,

84:Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal. ~ Charles Darwin,

85:Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life ~ Charles Darwin,

86:The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin ~ Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson,

87:I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts. ~ Charles Darwin,

88:Life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing. ~ Charles Darwin,

89:[Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived. ~ Charles Darwin,

90:How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children. ~ Charles Darwin,

91:A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. ~ Charles Darwin,

92:We stop looking for monsters under our beds when we realize they are inside us. ~ Charles Darwin,

93:But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.
~ Charles Darwin,

94:Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist. ~ Charles Darwin,

95:Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved ~ Charles Darwin,

96:A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, - a mere heart of stone. ~ Charles Darwin,

97:If every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. ~ Charles Darwin,

98:Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits. ~ Charles Darwin,

99:Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee and spirituous liqueurs. ~ Charles Darwin,

100:The more one thinks, the more one feels the hopeless immensity of man's ignorance. ~ Charles Darwin,

101:A cell is a complex structure, with its investing membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus. ~ Charles Darwin,

102:I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions. ~ Charles Darwin,

103:It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine. ~ Charles Darwin,

104:Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music. ~ Charles Darwin,

105:Animals manifestly enjoy excitement, and suffer from annul and may exhibit curiosity. ~ Charles Darwin,

106:El señor Charles Darwin tenía razón, y la prueba de ello estaba en mi propio jardin ~ Jacqueline Kelly,

107:Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends. ~ Charles Darwin,

108:I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship. ~ Charles Darwin,

109:... not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. ~ Charles Darwin,

110:A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there. ~ Charles Darwin,

111:It is scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the dog. ~ Charles Darwin,

112:Sympathy for the lowest animals is one of the noblest virtues with which man is endowed. ~ Charles Darwin,

113:We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us. ~ Charles Darwin,

114:Charles Darwin found that survival is determined by the ability to adapt to circumstances. ~ Verne Harnish,

115:I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation. ~ Charles Darwin,

116:Nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in a distant country. ~ Charles Darwin,

117:Darwin Slept Here: Discovery, Adventure, and Swimming Iguanas in Charles Darwin’s South America. ~ Anonymous,

118:In my simplicity, I remember wondering why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist. ~ Charles Darwin,

119:Un hombre de ciencia no debe tener ningún deseo, ni afectos sino un mero corazón de piedra. ~ Charles Darwin,

120:Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music. ~ Charles Darwin,

121:The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability. ~ Charles Darwin,

122:If I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much as I have accomplished. ~ Charles Darwin,

123:species of the same genus would occasionally exhibit reversions to lost ancestral characters. ~ Charles Darwin,

124:Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embellishment. ~ Charles Darwin,

125:I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me ~ Charles Darwin,

126:it is so important to bear in mind the probability of conversion from one function to another, ~ Charles Darwin,

127:Man, wonderful man, must collapse, into nature's cauldron, he is no deity, he is no exception. ~ Charles Darwin,

128:we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps ~ Charles Darwin,

129:As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. ~ Charles Darwin,

130:I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. ~ Charles Darwin,

131:Our faculties are more fitted to recognize the wonderful structure of a beetle than a Universe. ~ Charles Darwin,

132:...Showing that they descend from common parents, and consequently must be ranked as varieties. ~ Charles Darwin,

133:I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. ~ Charles Darwin,

134:Such simple instincts as bees making a beehive could be sufficient to overthrow my whole theory. ~ Charles Darwin,

135:Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory. ~ Stephen Jay Gould,

136:Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive. ~ Charles Darwin,

137:Smoking crack is a way for people who couldn't afford college to study the works of Charles Darwin. ~ P J O Rourke,

138:There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties ~ Charles Darwin,

139:Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles. ~ Charles Darwin,

140:He [Erasmus Darwin] used to say that 'unitarianism was a feather-bed to catch a falling Christian. ~ Charles Darwin,

141:It was Herbert Spencer, not Charles Darwin, who coined the phrase Survival of the Fittest. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith,

142:Man in many respects may be compared with those animals which have long been domesticated.
~ Charles Darwin, 1871,

143:Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have. ~ Charles Darwin,

144:I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. ~ Charles Darwin,

145:It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant. ~ Charles Darwin,

146:The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change. ~ Charles Darwin,

147:And thus, the forms of life throughout the universe become divided into groups subordinate to groups. ~ Charles Darwin,

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

149:It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest. ~ Charles Darwin,

150:The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile. ~ Charles Darwin,

151:Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality. ~ Charles Darwin,

152:I feel like an old warhorse at the sound of a trumpet when I read about the capturing of rare beetles. ~ Charles Darwin,

153:The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form. ~ Charles Darwin,

154:The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers. ~ Charles Darwin,

155:I cannot see ... evidence of design and beneficence ... There seems to me too much misery in the world. ~ Charles Darwin,

156:It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the "plan of creation," "unity of design, ~ Charles Darwin,

157:The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts. ~ Charles Darwin,

158:The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts. ~ Charles Darwin,

159:Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than humans would at first suppose. ~ Charles Darwin,

160:It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards. ~ Charles Darwin,

161:It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature. ~ Charles Darwin,

162:It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter. ~ Charles Darwin,

163:Even people who aren’t geniuses can outthink the rest of mankind if they develop certain thinking habits. ~ Charles Darwin,

164:If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. ~ Charles Darwin,

165:İnsan kendinin sınıflayıcısı olmasaydı, kendini yerleştirmek için ayrı bir takım kurmayı asla düşünmezdi. ~ Charles Darwin,

166:None can reply - all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue, which teaches awful doubt. ~ Charles Darwin,

167:On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation. ~ Charles Darwin,

168:Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather. ~ Charles Darwin,

169:The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

170:A naked man on a naked horse is a fine spectacle. I had no idea how well the two animals suited each other. ~ Charles Darwin,

171:My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts. ~ Charles Darwin,

172:On your life, underestimating the proclivities of finches is likely to lead to great internal hemorrhaging. ~ Charles Darwin,

173:The age-old and noble thought of 'I will lay down my life to save another,' is nothing more than cowardice. ~ Charles Darwin,

174:I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me. ~ Charles Darwin,

175:【Q/微信859`9617`35办澳洲教育部学历学位认证】澳洲CDU文凭.代办澳洲使馆公证留学归国证明Q/微`信283`2140`72查尔斯达尔文大学毕业证成绩单Charles Darwin University diploma ~ Andy McNab,

176:We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it. ~ Charles Darwin,

177:I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance Huxley ~ Charles Darwin,

178:It is impossible to concieve of this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity. ~ Charles Darwin,

179:Not one change of species into another is on record ... we cannot prove that a single species has been changed. ~ Charles Darwin,

180:This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

181:It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public, and I am sure that the views are original. ~ Charles Darwin,

182:Charles Darwin himself had written a whole tome about the parallels between human and animal emotional expressions. ~ Frans de Waal,

183:...he who remains passive when over-whelmed with grief loses his best chance of recovering his elasticity of mind. ~ Charles Darwin,

184:I always make special notes about evidence that contridicts me: supportive evidence I can remember without trying. ~ Charles Darwin,

185:To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. ~ Charles Darwin,

186:A republic cannot succeed, till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour. ~ Charles Darwin,

187:The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic. ~ Charles Darwin,

188:There is a grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful are being evolved ~ Charles Darwin,

189:An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men. ~ Charles Darwin,

190:If any man wants to gain a good opinion of his fellow men, he ought to do what I am doing: pester them with letters. ~ Charles Darwin,

191:July 24th, 1833.—The Beagle sailed from Maldonado, and on August the 3rd she arrived off the mouth of the Rio Negro. ~ Charles Darwin,

192:Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy. ~ Charles Darwin,

193:the power to charm the female has sometimes been more important than the power to conquer other males in battle. LAWS ~ Charles Darwin,

194:Two distinct elements are included under the term "inheritance"— the transmission, and the development of characters; ~ Charles Darwin,

195:But I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders. ~ Charles Darwin,

196:Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement. ~ Charles Darwin,

197:If man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own reception. ~ Charles Darwin,

198:in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. —CHARLES DARWIN ~ David Duchovny,

199:What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature! ~ Charles Darwin,

200:I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, ~ Charles Darwin,

201:I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

202:In conclusion, it appears that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries. ~ Charles Darwin,

203:Language is an art, like brewing or baking.... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt. ~ Charles Darwin,

204:Sexual selection will also be largely dominated by natural selection tending towards the general welfare of the species. ~ Charles Darwin,

205:All the professors in all the religious colleges in this country rolled into one, would not equal Charles Darwin. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,

206:Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science. ~ Charles Darwin,

207:Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. ~ Charles Darwin,

208:From a ball of mud taken from a birds plumage, Charles Darwin raised 82 separate plants, belonging to five distinct species! ~ Rachel Carson,

209:Origin of man now proved. Metaphysics must flourish. He who understand baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke. ~ Charles Darwin,

210:What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame; the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly. ~ Charles Darwin,

211:With mammals the male appears to win the female much more through the law of battle than through the display of his charms. ~ Charles Darwin,

212:Origin of man now proved.—Metaphysics must flourish.—He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke. ~ Charles Darwin,

213:How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service! ~ Charles Darwin,

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

215:It is necessary to look forward to a harvest, however distant that may be, when some fruit will be reaped, some good effected. ~ Charles Darwin,

216:Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. ~ Charles Darwin,

217:Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants. ~ Charles Darwin,

218:Charles Darwin got totally hammered, woke up next to a monkey and decided he had to come up with a theory to make it all okay. ~ Stephen Colbert,

219:I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent God would have designedly created...that a cat should play with mice. ~ Charles Darwin,

220:Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral. ~ Charles Darwin,

221:I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. ~ Charles Darwin,

222:Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals. ~ Charles Darwin,

223:Through his powers of intellect, articulate language has been evolved; and on this his wonderful advancement has mainly depended. ~ Charles Darwin,

224:Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure. ~ Charles Darwin,

225:It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. —Charles Darwin ~ Marie Force,

226:Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. ~ Charles Darwin,

227:The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry. ~ Charles Darwin,

228:[T]he young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements. ~ Charles Darwin,

229:To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree ~ Charles Darwin,

230:At no time am I a quick thinker or writer: whatever I have done in science has solely been by long pondering, patience and industry. ~ Charles Darwin,

231:Did man, after his first inroad into South America, destroy, as has been suggested, the unwieldy Megatherium and the other Edentata? ~ Charles Darwin,

232:If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week. ~ Charles Darwin,

233:pero la selección natural no puede modificar la estructura de una especie, sin darle ninguna ventaja, para provecho de otra especie; ~ Charles Darwin,

234:Charles Darwin’s well-known observation that the mental difference between humans and other animals is one of degree rather than kind. ~ Frans de Waal,

235:I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent. ~ Charles Darwin,

236:Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, first coined the term “eugenics” in his 1883 book Human Faculty and Its Development. ~ Elizabeth Letts,

237:Along with William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin is Britain's greatest gift to the world. He was our greatest thinker. ~ Richard Dawkins,

238:One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die. ~ Charles Darwin,

239:The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. —CHARLES DARWIN ~ David Duchovny,

240:The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. ~ Charles Darwin,

241:Galton was a world renowned anthropologist back in the nineteenth century, though he was a big overshadowed by his cousin, Charles Darwin. ~ Hunter Shea,

242:In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. ~ Charles Darwin,

243:It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” —Charles Darwin ~ Hourly History,

244:A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives—of approving of some and disapproving of others. ~ Charles Darwin,

245:A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Charles Darwin ~ Charles Darwin,

246:Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms. ~ Charles Darwin,

247:A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others. ~ Charles Darwin,

248:Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species. ~ Charles Darwin,

249:puede llegar a deducir que las especies no han sido creadas independientemente, sino que han descendido como variedades de otras especies. ~ Charles Darwin,

250:I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness. ~ Charles Darwin,

251:In all cases positive palaeontological evidence may be implicitly trusted; negative evidence is worthless, as experience has so often shown. ~ Charles Darwin,

252:It at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. ~ Charles Darwin,

253:A pleasurable and excited state of mind, associated with affection, is exhibited by some dogs in a very peculiar manner, namely, by grinning. ~ Charles Darwin,

254:I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. ~ Charles Darwin,

255:I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision. ~ Charles Darwin,

256:It's an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed but ... most people just don't get it - I must be a very bad explainer ~ Charles Darwin,

257:... the structure of every organic being is related, in the most essential yet often hidden manner, to that of all the other organic beings ... ~ Charles Darwin,

258:Today Charles Darwin is best known for establishing the fact of evolution and for recognizing the major role of natural selection in driving it. ~ Jared Diamond,

259:I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. ~ Charles Darwin,

260:As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection. ~ Charles Darwin,

261:Even Charles Darwin, that human decoder ring of bizarre behavior, found the idea of saving a stranger's life to be a total head-scratcher. ~ Christopher McDougall,

262:From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed. ... To group all facts under some general laws. ~ Charles Darwin,

263:I think an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind. The whole subject [of God] is beyond the scope of man's intellect. ~ Charles Darwin,

264:...conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse. ~ Charles Darwin,

265:I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please. ~ Charles Darwin,

266:Aunque la paloma de palomar, que es la silvestre en estado ligerísimamente alterado, ha logrado en algunos lugares volver a dicho estado primitivo. ~ Charles Darwin,

267:Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character. ~ Charles Darwin,

268:Even the humblest mammal's strong sexual, parental, and social instincts give rise to 'do unto others as yourself' and 'love thy neighbor as thyself'. ~ Charles Darwin,

269:Farewell Australia! You ... are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret. ~ Charles Darwin,

270:la variabilidad se relaciona generalmente con las condiciones de vida a las que cada especie ha estado expuesta durante varias generaciones sucesivas. ~ Charles Darwin,

271:Not one great country can be named, from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves. ~ Charles Darwin,

272:Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory. ~ Charles Darwin,

273:Even when we are quite alone, how often do we think with pleasure or pain of what others think of us - of their imagined approbation or disapprobation. ~ Charles Darwin,

274:In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment. ~ Charles Darwin,

275:It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
not the most intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. ~ Charles Darwin,

276:Daily it is forced home on the mind of the biologist that nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of this earth. ~ Charles Darwin,

277:I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work in Natural Selection, which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being. ~ Charles Darwin,

278:I conclude that the musical notes and rhythms were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex. ~ Charles Darwin,

279:... probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed. ~ Charles Darwin,

280:The limit of man s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination. ~ Charles Darwin,

281:Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man, “The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.” The ~ Roy F Baumeister,

282:The young blush much more freely than the old but not during infancy, which is remarkable, as we know that infants at a very early age redden from passion. ~ Charles Darwin,

283:People still don't get how astounding Darwinism is. People think what shocked everybody was that Charles Darwin seemed to be saying we had descended from apes. ~ Stephen Fry,

284:The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel. ~ Charles Darwin,

285:Charles Darwin wrote a famous book in 18 [gibberish]. And that book was an interesting book, cuz it was called "Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-You". ~ Eddie Izzard,

286:Englishmen rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief; whereas in some parts of the Continent the men shed tears much more readily and freely. ~ Charles Darwin,

287:It may be doubted that there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures. ~ Charles Darwin,

288:In the survival of favoured individuals and races, during the constantly-recurring struggle for existence, we see a powerful and ever-acting form of selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

289:Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes. ~ Charles Darwin,

290:But a plant on the edge of a deserts is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent upon the moisture. ~ Charles Darwin,

291:It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. —Charles Darwin ~ Aleatha Romig,

292:The advantage which disciplined soldiers have over undisciplined hordes follows cheaply from the confidence which each man feels in his comrades. Charles Darwin ~ Jonathan Haidt,

293:Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, ... I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. ~ Charles Darwin,

294:... biraz aptal olan kimseler, her şeyi göreneğe göre ya da alışkanlıkla yapmaya eğilimlidirler; ve böyle davranmaya yüreklendirilirlerse daha çok mutlu olurlar. ~ Charles Darwin,

295:Do you ask me how I explain the origin of this world and origin of man? Alright I tell you. Charles Darwin has tried to throw some light on the subject. Study him. ~ Bhagat Singh,

296: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. ~ Charles Darwin,

297:Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy of the interposition of a deity. More humble, and I believe truer, to consider him created from animals. ~ Charles Darwin,

298:It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. —Charles Darwin T ~ Aleatha Romig,

299:Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy the interposition of a great deity. More humble and I believe true to consider him created from animals. ~ Charles Darwin,

300:What an extraordinary thing it is, Mr. Darwin seems to spend hours in cracking a horse-whip in his room, for I often hear the crack when I pass under his windows. ~ Charles Darwin,

301:I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brain... & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes. ~ Charles Darwin,

302:Or she may accept, as appearances would sometimes lead us to believe, not the male which is the most attractive to her, but the one which is the least distasteful. ~ Charles Darwin,

303:We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. ~ Charles Darwin,

304:If the country were open on its borders, new forms would certainly immigrate, and this also would seriously disturb the relations of some of the former inhabitants. ~ Charles Darwin,

305:So great is the economy of nature, that most flowers which are fertilised by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit their odour chiefly or exclusively in the evening. ~ Charles Darwin,

306:The man that created the theory of evolution by natural selection was thrown out by his Dad because he wanted him to be a doctor. GAWD, parents haven't changed much. ~ Charles Darwin,

307:From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows. ~ Charles Darwin,

308:The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage. ~ Charles Darwin,

309:A surprising number [of novels] have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily-against which a law ought to be passed. ~ Charles Darwin,

310:...it appears to me, the doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelyhood pursue. ~ Charles Darwin,

311:It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist. ... I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. ~ Charles Darwin,

312:The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed. ~ Charles Darwin,

313:Till facts are grouped & called there can be no prediction. The only advantage of discovering laws is to foretell what will happen & to see bearing of scattered facts. ~ Charles Darwin,

314:It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. —Charles Darwin THE ~ Aleatha Romig,

315:We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. ~ Charles Darwin,

316:You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. ~ Charles Darwin,

317:É muito fácil esconder nossa ignorância debaixo de expressões como "plano de criação", "unidade de padrão", etc., e pensar que explicamos um fato apenas por reafirmá-lo. ~ Charles Darwin,

318:In regard to the amount of difference between the races, we must make some allowance for our nice powers of discrimination gained by a long habit of observing ourselves. ~ Charles Darwin,

319:Natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight successive favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification; it can act only by very short steps. ~ Charles Darwin,

320:When the sexes differ in beauty, in the power of singing, or in producing what I have called instrumental music, it is almost invariably the male which excels the female. ~ Charles Darwin,

321:Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,

322:To my deep mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family." ~ Charles Darwin,

323:As the sense of smell is so intimately connected with that of taste, it is not surprising that an excessively bad odour should excite wretching or vomitting in some persons. ~ Charles Darwin,

324:The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Tralfamadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin—who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,

325:I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference. ~ Charles Darwin,

326:It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on the supposition that species gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me. ~ Charles Darwin,

327:The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith? ~ Charles Darwin,

328:We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act. ~ Charles Darwin,

329:A novel according to my taste, does not come into the moderately good class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love - and if a pretty woman, all the better. ~ Charles Darwin,

330:las variaciones y diferencias individuales favorables, y la destrucción de aquellas que son nocivas, es lo que hemos llamado selección natural o supervivencia de los más aptos. ~ Charles Darwin,

331:The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. ~ Charles Darwin,

332:We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act. ~ Charles Darwin,

333:Peer reviewers go for orthodoxy ... Many of the great 19th-century discoveries were made by men who had independent wealth-Charles Darwin is the prototype. They trusted themselves. ~ James Black,

334:The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for  the existence of God. ~ Charles Darwin,

335:At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world. ~ Charles Darwin,

336:...I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference. ~ Charles Darwin,

337:It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the plan of creation or unity of design, etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. ~ Charles Darwin,

338:It strikes me that all our knowledge about the structure of our Earth is very much like what an old hen would know of the hundred-acre field in a corner of which she is scratching. ~ Charles Darwin,

339:Sexual selection acts in a less rigorous manner than natural selection. The latter produces its effects by the life or death at all ages of the more or less successful individuals. ~ Charles Darwin,

340: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 a single small volume, I always chose Milton. ~ Charles Darwin,

341:he doubted whether any one with my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage. But I think he was afterwards well satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely. ~ Charles Darwin,

342:Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. ~ Charles Darwin,

343:Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in my 'Origin of Species. ~ Charles Darwin,

344:With highly civilised nations continued progress depends in a subordinate degree on natural selection; for such nations do not supplant and exterminate one another as do savage tribes. ~ Charles Darwin,

345:...I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can.— ~ Charles Darwin,

346:In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some apelike creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any definite point where the term 'man' ought to be used. ~ Charles Darwin,

347:This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. ~ Charles Darwin,

348:But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. ~ Charles Darwin,

349:He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise when he has met with an animal having habits and structure not at all in agreement. ~ Charles Darwin,

350:On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and comparing them to placental mammals: “An unbeliever . . . might exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work'” ~ Charles Darwin,

351:But Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art. ~ Charles Darwin,

352:I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense. ~ Charles Darwin,

353:Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind. ~ Charles Darwin,

354:No doubt as long as man and all other animals are viewed as independent creations, an effectual stop is put to our natural desire to investigate as far as possible the causes of Expression. ~ Charles Darwin,

355:The differences of Mr. [Patrick] Matthew's views from mine are not of much importance: he seems to consider that the world was nearly depopulated at successive periods, and then re-stocked; ~ Charles Darwin,

356:About weak points [of the Origin] I agree. The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations, my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder. ~ Charles Darwin,

357:I suppose you are two fathoms deep in mathematics, and if you are, then God help you. For so am I, only with this difference: I stick fast in the mud at the bottom, and there I shall remain. ~ Charles Darwin,

358:It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain the what is the essence of the attraction of gravity? ~ Charles Darwin,

359:Man himself cannot express love and humility by external signs, so plainly as does a dog, when with drooping ears, hanging lips, flexuous body, and wagging tail, he meets his beloved master. ~ Charles Darwin,

360:WE CAN ALLOW SATELLITES, PLANETS, SUNS, UNIVERSE, NAY WHOLE SYSTEMS OF UNIVERSES, TO BE GOVERNED BY LAWS, BUT THE SMALLEST INSECT, WE WISH TO BE CREATED AT ONCE BY SPECIAL ACT. —Charles Darwin ~ Edward Humes,

361:A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct. ~ Charles Darwin,

362:Hence if man goes on selecting, and thus augmenting, any peculiarity, he will almost certainly modify unintentionally other parts of the structure, owing to the mysterious laws of correlation. ~ Charles Darwin,

363:The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress. ~ Charles Darwin,

364:Con respecto a la creencia de que los seres orgánicos fueron creados hermosos para recreo del hombre (creencia que, se ha anunciado, derriba toda nuestra teoría) debemos primero hacer notar que ~ Charles Darwin,

365:I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars. ~ Charles Darwin,

366:Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such care. ~ Charles Darwin,

367:Some highly competent authorities are convinced that the setter is directly derived from the spaniel, and has probably been slowly altered from it. It is known that the English pointer has been ~ Charles Darwin,

368:A un mono americano, un ateles, que se embriagó con coñac , nunca más se le pudo hacer que lo volviese a probar, en lo que obraba con mayor cordura que muchos hombres

El Origen del Hombre ~ Charles Darwin,

369:But Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art. We ~ Charles Darwin,

370:Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them. ~ Charles Darwin,

371:Natural selection rendered evolution scientifically intelligible: it was this more than anything else which convinced professional biologists like Sir Joseph Hooker, T. H. Huxley and Ernst Haeckel. ~ Charles Darwin,

372:But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand. ~ Charles Darwin,

373:I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them. ~ Charles Darwin,

374:But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? ~ Charles Darwin,

375:Man could no longer be regarded as the Lord of Creation, a being apart from the rest of nature. He was merely the representative of one among many Families of the order Primates in the class Mammalia. ~ Charles Darwin,

376:When the views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly forsee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history. ~ Charles Darwin,

377:Blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. Monkeys redden from passion, but it would require an overwhelming amount of evidence to make us believe that any animal could blush. ~ Charles Darwin,

378:If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly have been said to have done so instinctively. ~ Charles Darwin,

379:I have stated, that in the thirteen species of ground-finches, a nearly perfect gradation may be traced, from a beak extraordinarily thick, to one so fine, that it may be compared to that of a warbler. ~ Charles Darwin,

380:Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ~ Charles Darwin,

381:It has been a bitter mortification for me to digest the conclusion that the "race is for the strong" and that I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in science. ~ Charles Darwin,

382:It has been a bitter mortification for me to digest the conclusion that the 'race is for the strong' and that I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in science. ~ Charles Darwin,

383:It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another...we consider those, where the intellectual faculties most developed as the highest. - A bee doubtless would [use] ... instincts as a criteria. ~ Charles Darwin,

384:I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it. ~ Charles Darwin,

385:May we not suspect that the vague but very real fears of children, which are quite independent of experience, are the inherited effects of real dangers and abject superstitions during ancient savage times? ~ Charles Darwin,

386:Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ~ Charles Darwin,

387:Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed. ~ Charles Darwin,

388:Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last was complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. ~ Charles Darwin,

389:If I had life to live over again, I would give my life to poetry, to music, to literature, and to art to make life richer and happier. In my youth I steeled myself against them and thought them so much waste. ~ Charles Darwin,

390:The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature. ~ Charles Darwin,

391:When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. ~ Charles Darwin,

392:When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. ~ Charles Darwin,

393:I believe we were all glad to leave New Zealand. It is not a pleasant place. Amongst the natives there is absent that charming simplicity .... and the greater part of the English are the very refuse of society. ~ Charles Darwin,

394:Charles Darwin announced that the geological processes that created the Weald, an area of southern England stretching across Kent, Surrey and Sussex, had taken, by his calculations, 306, 662, 400 years to complete. ~ Bill Bryson,

395:I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs. ~ Charles Darwin,

396:There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures. ~ Charles Darwin,

397:People complain of the unequal distribution of wealth [but it is a far greater] injustice that any one man should have the power to write so many brilliant essays... There is no one who writes like [Thomas Huxley]. ~ Charles Darwin,

398:If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case. ~ Charles Darwin,

399:It occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made of this question (the origin of the species) by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it ~ Charles Darwin,

400:There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties...The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. ~ Charles Darwin,

401:We may confidently come to the conclusion, that the forces which slowly and by little starts uplift continents, and that those which at successive periods pour forth volcanic matter from open orifices, are identical. ~ Charles Darwin,

402:It is a truly wonderful fact - the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity - that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group. ~ Charles Darwin,

403:A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct actions of external conditions, and so forth. ~ Charles Darwin,

404:I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect (compared to animals or other living beings), only in zeal and hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference ~ Charles Darwin,

405:I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things; and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever - much cleverer than the discoverers - never originate anything. ~ Charles Darwin,

406:False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness. ~ Charles Darwin,

407:I do not believe, as we shall presently see, that all our dogs have descended from any one wild species; but, in the case of some other domestic races, there is presumptive, or even strong, evidence in favour of this view. ~ Charles Darwin,

408:You will be astonished to find how the whole mental disposition of your children changes with advancing years. A young child and the same when nearly grown, sometimes differ almost as much as do a caterpillar and butterfly. ~ Charles Darwin,

409:It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind. ~ Charles Darwin,

410:What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern? ~ Charles Darwin,

411:¿Podemos creer que la selección natural llegue a producir, por una parte, un órgano de insignificante importancia, como la cola de la jirafa, que sirve de espantamoscas, y por otra parte, un órgano tan maravilloso como el ojo? ~ Charles Darwin,

412:since all organisms vary, and all reproduce themselves in greater numbers than can survive, there must always be competition between variants; in other words, the principle of natural selection, too, is universally applicable. ~ Charles Darwin,

413:The elder Geoffroy and Goethe propounded, at about the same time, their law of compensation or balancement of growth; or, as Goethe expressed it, "in order to spend on one side, nature is forced to economise on the other side. ~ Charles Darwin,

414:But Geology carries the day: it is like the pleasure of gambling, speculating, on first arriving, what the rocks may be; I often mentally cry out 3 to 1 Tertiary against primitive; but the latter have hitherto won all the bets. ~ Charles Darwin,

415:John, possessing a genetic defect that makes him walk toward danger, strode down toward where it looked like some cops were trying to set up a perimeter around the chaos. Somewhere, Charles Darwin nodded and smiled a knowing smile. ~ David Wong,

416:¿Pueden los instintos adquirirse y modificarse por medio de la selección natural? ¿Qué diremos del instinto que lleva a la abeja a hacer celdas, y que prácticamente se ha adelantado a los descubrimientos de notables matemáticos? ~ Charles Darwin,

417:The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children. ~ Charles Darwin,

418:The great variability of all the external differences between the races of man, likewise indicates that they cannot be of much importance; for if important, they would long ago have been either fixed and preserved, or eliminated. ~ Charles Darwin,

419:For forms existing in larger numbers will always have a better chance, within any given period, of presenting further favourable variations for natural selection to seize on, than will the rarer forms which exist in lesser numbers. ~ Charles Darwin,

420:It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats. ~ Charles Darwin,

421:... belirtilen çeşitli engeller ve belki daha bilinmeyen başkaları, toplumun tasasız, bozuk ve başka bakımlardan aşağı üyelerinin iyi insanlardan daha hızlı çoğalmasını önlemezse, dünya tarihinde pek sık görüldüğü gibi, ulus geriler. ~ Charles Darwin,

422:It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself. ~ Charles Darwin,

423:So in regard to mental qualities, their transmission is manifest in our dogs, horses and other domestic animals. Besides special tastes and habits, general intelligence, courage, bad and good tempers. etc., are certainly transmitted. ~ Charles Darwin,

424:In the future I see open fields for more important researches. Psychology will be securely based on the foundation already laid by Mr. Herbert Spencer, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by graduation. ~ Charles Darwin,

425:I quoted to him what I remembered of Charles Darwin: "'Judging by the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity...'"
"Darwin was right," Nebogipfel said gently. ~ Stephen Baxter,

426:Charles Darwin had once pointed out that the fiercest competition for survival came from one's own tribe, and as the fifth of six children - and with three older sisters - he was obviously in a position to know what he was talking about. ~ Alan Bradley,

427:El embrión no queda afectado, y sirve como indicio de la pasada condición de las especies. Por eso sucede que las especies existentes, durante los primeros períodos de su desarrollo, se parecen a menudo a formas antiguas y extinguidas, ~ Charles Darwin,

428:... But that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. ~ Charles Darwin,

429:Remember, your company is a living organism that needs to survive in an environment that’s always changing. To thrive, it has to be able to adapt. Charles Darwin found that survival is determined by the ability to adapt to circumstances. ~ Verne Harnish,

430:The greatest thinkers in history certainly knew the value of shifting the mind into low gear. Charles Darwin described himself as a slow thinker. Einstein was famous for spending ages staring into space in his office at Princeton University. ~ Carl Honor,

431:He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation ... Man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common progenitor. ~ Charles Darwin,

432:I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks ~ Charles Darwin,

433:My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. ~ Charles Darwin,

434:The greatest thinkers in history certainly knew the value of shifting the mind into low gear. Charles Darwin described himself as a slow thinker. Einstein was famous for spending ages staring into space in his office at Princeton University. ~ Carl Honore,

435:During my second year at Edinburgh [1826-27] I attended Jameson's lectures on Geology and Zoology, but they were incredible dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology. ~ Charles Darwin,

436:I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce [direct] evidence of one species changing into another, but I believe that this view is in the main correct, because so many phenomena can thus be grouped end explained. ~ Charles Darwin,

437:I fully subscribe to the judgement of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animal, the moral sense of conscience is by far the most important....It is the most noble of all the attributes of man. ~ Charles Darwin,

438:I received the proceedings of one of the meetings, in which it seemed that the shape of my head had been the subject of a public discussion, and one of the speakers declared that I had the bump of reverence developed enough for ten priests. ~ Charles Darwin,

439:Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends. ~ Charles Darwin,

440:The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians. ~ Charles Darwin,

441:If I had to pick a hero, it would be Charles Darwin--the size of his mind, which included all that scientific curiosity and knowledge seeking, and the ability to put it all together. There is a genuine spirituality about Darwin's thinking. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,

442:The mature Charley—Charles Darwin—even later forgave his father’s tough parenting, saying, “My father, who was the kindest man I ever knew and whose memory I love with all my heart, must have been angry … when he used such words. ~ Barbara Natterson Horowitz,

443:But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this—we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws. ~ Charles Darwin,

444:I have described, in the second chapter, the gait and appearance of a dog when cheerful, and the marked antithesis presented by the same animal when dejected and disappointed, with his head, ears, body, tail, and chops drooping, and eyes dull. ~ Charles Darwin,

445:It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attraction. ~ Charles Darwin,

446:I want to do for every aspect of the human world a little bit of what Charles Darwin did for biology, and get you to see past the illusion of design, to see the emergent, unplanned, inexorable and beautiful process of change that lies underneath. ~ Matt Ridley,

447:We here see in two distant countries a similar relation between plants and insects of the same families, though the species of both are different. When man is the agent in introducing into a country a new species this relation is often broken: ~ Charles Darwin,

448:Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. ~ Charles Darwin,

449:I shall always feel respect for every one who has written a book, let it be what it may, for I had no idea of the trouble which trying to write common English could cost one—And alas there yet remains the worst part of all correcting the press. ~ Charles Darwin,

450:The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection of the record. The crust of the earth with its embedded remains must not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but as a poor collection made at hazard and at rare intervals. ~ Charles Darwin,

451:como se producen más individuos que los que pueden sobrevivir, tiene que haber en cada caso una lucha por la existencia, ya de un individuo con otro de su misma especie o con individuos de especies distintas, ya con las condiciones físicas de vida. ~ Charles Darwin,

452:From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the grouping of stars in constellations. ~ Charles Darwin,

453:Habiendo tenido ejemplares vivos de casi todas las castas inglesas de aves de corral, habiéndoselas criado y cruzado, después de examinar sus esqueletos, nos parece casi cierto que en su totalidad descienden de la raza salvaje india Gallus bankiva. ~ Charles Darwin,

454:La selección natural obra solamente por medio de la conservación de las variaciones que son en algún concepto ventajosas. Podemos comprender que cualquier forma representada por pocos individuos correrá mucho riesgo de quedar completamente extinguida ~ Charles Darwin,

455:If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and over their burrows, as seems the case, they deserve to be called intelligent; for they act in nearly the same manner as would man under similar circumstances. ~ Charles Darwin,

456:I live on the other side of Charles Darwin and I can no longer see human light as having been created perfect and falling into sin, I see us rather emerging into higher and higher levels of consciousness and higher and higher levels of complication. ~ John Shelby Spong,

457:I never dreamed that islands, about fifty or sixty miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted.
~ Charles Darwin,

458:Many of the most accomplished people of our era were considered by experts to have no future. Jackson Pollock, Marcel Proust, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Lucille Ball, and Charles Darwin were all thought to have little potential for their chosen fields. ~ Carol S Dweck,

459:I find I look at this province with very different eyes then when I arrived. I recollect I then thought of it as singularly level, but now after galloping over the montañas my own only surprise is what could have induced me to have ever called it level! ~ Charles Darwin,

460:Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. ~ Charles Darwin,

461:the struggle [for existence] almost invariably will be most severe between the individuals of the same species, for they frequent the same districts, require the same food, and are exposed to the same dangers. CHARLES DARWIN, On the Origin of Species (1859) ~ Robert Harris,

462:Dos animales caninos, en tiempo de hambre, luchan mutuamente por conseguir el alimento que necesitan; pero la planta que nace en los linderos del desierto lucha por la existencia contra la sequía, aunque con más propiedad se diría que depende de la humedad. ~ Charles Darwin,

463:...one doubts existence of free will [because] every action determined by heredity, constitution, example of others or teaching of others." "This view should teach one profound humility, one deserves no credit for anything...nor ought one to blame others. ~ Charles Darwin,

464:But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand - If it is to be done, it must be by studying Humboldt. ~ Charles Darwin,

465:I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species has been independently created—is erroneous. ~ Charles Darwin,

466:I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture. ~ Charles Darwin,

467:In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. ~ Charles Darwin,

468:The truth is something you must find out for yourself. It is like a voyage of discovery and you will meet many adventures along the way. Listen to people's opinions but in the end it must be for you to determine truth as you find it. Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) ~ Charles Darwin,

469:In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God ... I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind. ~ Charles Darwin,

470:Evolution was Vladimir Ilich Lenin's problem. Lenin lead the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and took over Russia. He killed the Zar [ sic ] and his family in cold blood. There would not be communism in Russia today if had not been for Charles Darwin's book on evolution. ~ Kent Hovind,

471:Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the latter are known, or believed to be connected at the present day by intermediate gradations whereas species were formerly thus connected. ~ Charles Darwin,

472:We feel surprise when travellers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals! ~ Charles Darwin,

473:I was much struck how entirely vague and arbitrary is the distinction between species and varieties. ... But to discuss whether they are rightly called species or varieties, before any definition of these terms has been generally accepted, is vainly to beat the air. ~ Charles Darwin,

474:It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows from the advance of science. ~ Charles Darwin,

475:Nevertheless so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the forms of life! ~ Charles Darwin,

476:When primeval man first used flint stones for any purpose, he would have accidentally splintered them, and would then have used the sharp fragments. From this step it would be a small one to break the flints on purpose and not a very wide step to fashion them rudely. ~ Charles Darwin,

477:It seems pretty clear that organic beings must be exposed during several generations to the new conditions of life to cause any appreciable amount of variation; and that when the organisation has once begun to vary, it generally continues to vary for many generations. ~ Charles Darwin,

478:On Tralfamadore, says Billy Pilgrim, there isn't much interest in Jesus Christ. The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Tralfamadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin - who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements. So it goes. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,

479:As some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility. ~ Charles Darwin,

480:This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection and would be left a fluctuating element. ~ Charles Darwin,

481:As Charles Darwin’s work in the nineteenth century proves, the narratives have often been shaped by the attitudes of the time. Even he, the father of evolutionary biology, was so affected by a culture of sexism that he believed women to be the intellectually inferior sex. ~ Angela Saini,

482:The obsession with which those on the right resist Charles Darwin’s insight – that the complexity of nature does not imply a designer – matches the obsession with which those on the left resist Adam Smith’s insight – that the complexity of society does not imply a planner. ~ Matt Ridley,

483:Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd [should] be forestalled ... I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters. ~ Charles Darwin,

484:After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in any way on the variation of animals and plants under domestication and nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. ~ Charles Darwin,

485:I trust and believe that the time spent in this voyage ... will produce its full worth in Natural History; and it appears to me the doing what little we can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue. ~ Charles Darwin,

486:The Galapagos Islands are probably the most famous wildlife-watching destination in the world. And no wonder - it's almost impossible to exaggerate the sheer spectacle of the place that provided inspiration for Charles Darwin's ground-breaking theory of natural selection. ~ Mark Carwardine,

487:We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals. ~ Charles Darwin,

488:Why does man regret, even though he may endeavour to banish any such regret, that he has followed the one natural impulse, rather than the other; and why does he further feel that he ought to regret his conduct? Man in this respect differs profoundly from the lower animals. ~ Charles Darwin,

489:This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character. ~ Charles Darwin,

490:When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. ~ Charles Darwin,

491:The scientific association with a big idea, the “brand name,” goes to the one who connects the dots, not the one who makes a casual observation—even Charles Darwin, who uncultured scientists claim “invented” the survival of the fittest, was not the first to mention it. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

492:Traveling ought also to teach him distrust; but at the same time he will discover, how many truly kind-hearted people there are, with whom he never before had, or ever again will have any further communication, who yet are ready to offer him the most disinterested assistance. ~ Charles Darwin,

493:But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this— we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws."—Whewell: "Bridgewater Treatise". ~ Charles Darwin,

494:I recall the words of Charles Darwin in his Autobiography. ‘I rejoice that I have avoided controversies, and this I owe to Charles Lyell,* who…strongly advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a miserable loss of time and temper. ~ Richard Fortey,

495:Therefore a man should examine for himself the great piles of superimposed strata, and watch the rivulets bringing down mud, and the waves wearing away the sea-cliffs, in order to comprehend something about the duration of past time, the monuments of which we see all around us. ~ Charles Darwin,

496:there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be NATURALLY SELECTED. ~ Charles Darwin,

497:History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another. ~ Charles Darwin,

498:A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid; one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created. ~ Charles Darwin,

499:The western nations of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilization, owe little or none of their superiority to direct inheritance from the old Greeks, though they owe much to the written works of that wonderful people. ~ Charles Darwin,

500:The more efficient causes of progress seem to consist of a good education during youth whilst the brain is impressible, and of a high standard of excellence, inculcated by the ablest and best men, embodied in the laws, customs and traditions of the nation, and enforced by public opinion. ~ Charles Darwin,

501:modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection, if it be a true principle, banish the belief of the continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in their structure. ~ Charles Darwin,

502:But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? ~ Charles Darwin,

503:...I believe there exists, & I feel within me, an instinct for the truth, or knowledge or discovery, of something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue, & that our having such an instinct is reason enough for scientific researches without any practical results ever ensuing from them. ~ Charles Darwin,

504:I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most. ~ Charles Darwin,

505:A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones ~ Charles Darwin,

506:As Charles Darwin said,'The economy shown by Nature in her resources is striking,'' says the Spirit. 'All wealth comes from Nature. Without it, there wouldn't be any economics. The primary wealth is food, not money. Therefore anything that concerns the handling of the land also concerns me. ~ Margaret Atwood,

507:I often had to run very quickly to be on time, and from being a fleet runner was generally successful; but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided. ~ Charles Darwin,

508:The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career; yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me 30 miles to Shrewsbury, which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose. ~ Charles Darwin,

509:Charles Darwin made arguably the greatest discovery any human has ever made. He was a man of great persistence. He wasn't probably a natural genius, he worked very hard - even though he was an invalid. He was a great family man, a very nice man. I think he was admirable in all sorts of ways. ~ Richard Dawkins,

510:As the species of the same genus usually have, though by no means invariably, much similarity in habits and constitution, and always in structure, the struggle will generally be more severe between them, if they come into competition with each other, than between the species of distinct genera. ~ Charles Darwin,

511:I find in the domestic duck that the bones of the wing weigh less and the bones of the leg more, in proportion to the whole skeleton, than do the same bones in the wild duck; and this change may be safely attributed to the domestic duck flying much less, and walking more, than its wild parents. ~ Charles Darwin,

512:I liked the thought of being a country clergyman. Accordingly I read with care Pearson on the Creed and a few other books on divinity; and as I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible, I soon persuaded myself that our Creed must be fully accepted. ~ Charles Darwin,

513:Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. ~ Charles Darwin,

514:We shall best understand the probable course of natural selection by taking the case of a country undergoing some slight physical change, for instance, of climate. The proportional numbers of its inhabitants will almost immediately undergo a change, and some species will probably become extinct. ~ Charles Darwin,

515:I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. ~ Charles Darwin,

516:Who when examining in the cabinet of the entomologist the gay and exotic butterflies, and singular cicadas, will associate with these lifeless objects, the ceaseless harsh music of the latter, and the lazy flight of the former - the sure accompaniments of the still, glowing noonday of the tropics. ~ Charles Darwin,

517:If I had my life to live over again, I would make it a rule to read some poetry, listen to some music, and see some painting or drawing at least once a week, for perhaps the part of my brain now atrophied would then have been kept alive through life. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness. ~ Charles Darwin,

518:Jealousy was plainly exhibited when I fondled a large doll, and when I weighed his infant sister, he being then 15? months old. Seeing how strong a feeling of jealousy is in dogs, it would probably be exhibited by infants at any earlier age than just specified if they were tried in a fitting manner ~ Charles Darwin,

519:Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, ... temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. ~ Charles Darwin,

520:Each organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical ratio . . . each at some period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction . . . The vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply. ~ Charles Darwin,

521:Let it also be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life; and consequently what infinitely varied diversities of structure might be of use to each being under changing conditions of life. ~ Charles Darwin,

522:The love of a dog for his master is notorious; in the agony of death he has been known to caress his master, and everyone has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life. ~ Charles Darwin,

523:But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice. ~ Charles Darwin,

524:Charles Darwin, driven to desperation by a mysterious lifelong malady that left him chronically lethargic, routinely draped himself with electrified zinc chains, doused his body with vinegar, and glumly underwent hours of pointless tingling in the hope that it would effect some improvement. It never did. The ~ Bill Bryson,

525:Mr. Charles Darwin, who looked a bit like God which is interesting, wrote a book called You're a Fucking Monkey, Mate. He played around with the title for a while: We're All Fucking Monkeys; You're a Fucking Monkey, Mate; Get Out of My Face, You Fucking Monkey. And he ended up with On The Origin of Species. ~ Eddie Izzard,

526:There is a grandeur in this view of life with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one: and that whilst the cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved ~ Charles Darwin,

527:The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages. ~ Charles Darwin,

528:[...] I believe in Natural Selection, not because I can prove in any single case that it has changed one species into another, but because it groups and explains well (as it seems to me) a host of
facts in classification, embryology, morphology, rudimentary organs, geological succession and distribution. ~ Charles Darwin,

529:The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power. ~ Charles Darwin,

530:Describing laughter: The sound is produced by a deep inspiration followed by short, interrupted, spasmodic contractions of the chest, and especially the diaphragm... the mouth is open more or less widely, with the corners drawn much backwards, as well as a little upwards; and the upper lip is somewhat raised. ~ Charles Darwin,

531:Ultimately a highly complex sentiment, having its first origin in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, confirmed by instruction and habit, all combined, constitute our moral sense or conscience. ~ Charles Darwin,

532:Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is rare? Yet these relations are of the highest importance, for they determine the present welfare, and, as I believe, the future success and modification of every inhabitant of this world. ~ Charles Darwin,

533:Further on, he adds, that dogs, when feeling affectionate, lower their ears in order to exclude all sounds, so that their whole attention may be concentrated on the caresses of their master! Dogs have another and striking way of exhibiting their affection, namely, by licking the hands or faces of their masters. ~ Charles Darwin,

534:It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ~ Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man,

535:I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. ~ Charles Darwin,

536:We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm--a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven. ~ Charles Darwin,

537:I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term natural selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. ~ Charles Darwin,

538:It is not the conscience which raises a blush, for a man may sincerely regret some slight fault committed in solitude, or he may suffer the deepest remorse for an undetected crime, but he will not blush... It is not the sense of guilt, but the thought that others think or know us to be guilty which crimsons the face. ~ Charles Darwin,

539:On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in natural history, “Natura non facit saltum.” This canon, if we look only to the present inhabitants of the world, is not strictly correct, but if we include all those of past times, it must by my theory be strictly true. ~ Charles Darwin,

540:When a man merely speaks to, or just notices, his dog,we see the last vestige of these movements in a slight wag of the tail, without any other movement of the body, and without even the ears being lowered. Dogs also exhibit their affection by desiring to rub against their masters, and to be rubbed or patted by them. ~ Charles Darwin,

541:Even Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, and Albert Einstein made serious mistakes. But the scientific enterprise arranges things so that teamwork prevails: What one of us, even the most brilliant among us, misses, another of us, even someone much less celebrated and capable, may detect and rectify. ~ Carl Sagan,

542:To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. ~ Charles Darwin,

543:Some few, and I am one of them, even wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against slavery. In the long-run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity. Great God! how I should like to see the greatest curse on earth - slavery - abolished! ~ Charles Darwin,

544:For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question. ~ Charles Darwin,

545:[Herschel and Humboldt] stirred up in me a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science. No one or a dozen other books influenced me nearly so much as these two. I copied out from Humboldt long passages about Teneriffe and read them aloud on one of [my walking excursions]. ~ Charles Darwin,

546:There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. ~ Charles Darwin,

547:But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
[To William Graham 3 July 1881] ~ Charles Darwin,

548:The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is STATED, FIXED or SETTLED; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once."—Butler: "Analogy of Revealed Religion". ~ Charles Darwin,

549:A radical move from the old Victorian orthodoxies of the kind Charles Darwin had subscribed to was underway. People could no longer clearly define the sexes anymore. There was overlap. Femaleness and maleness, femininity and masculinity, were turning into fluid descriptions, which might be as much shaped by nurture as by nature. ~ Angela Saini,

550:By his own assessment, he was no genius. He had "no great quickness of apprehension or wit" or "power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought." On the many occasions when I share those feelings, I find it encouraging to review those words because that Englishman did okay for himself—his name was Charles Darwin. ~ Leonard Mlodinow,

551:I have read heaps of agricultural & horticultural books, & have never ceased collecting facts— At last gleams of light have come, & I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.
"Lettre To Joseph Dalton Hooker [11 January 1844] ~ Charles Darwin,

552:The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than the woman. Whether deep thought, reason, or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands.....We may also infer.....The average mental power in man must be above that of woman. ~ Charles Darwin,

553:Great as the differences are between the breeds of pigeons, I am fully convinced that the common opinion of naturalists is correct, namely, that all have descended from the rock-pigeon (Columba livia), including under this term several geographical races or sub-species, which differ from each other in the most trifling respects. ~ Charles Darwin,

554:False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened. ~ Charles Darwin,

555:I look at the natural geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. ~ Charles Darwin,

556:There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its
several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning
endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. ~ Charles Darwin,

557:That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes. Which is more likely, that pain and evil are the result of an all-powerful and good God, or the product of uncaring natural forces? The presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

558:The traveler may feel assured, he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates. In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humored patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the best of every occurrence. ~ Charles Darwin,

559:I remember a funny dinner at my brother's, where, amongst a few others, were Babbage and Lyell, both of whom liked to talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing during the whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner Babbage, in his grimmest manner, thanked Carlyle for his very interesting lecture on silence. ~ Charles Darwin,

560:It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin proved "that the subject was in the air," or "that men's minds were prepared for it." I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. ~ Charles Darwin,

561:The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent deity. ~ Charles Darwin,

562:La belleza, en muchos casos, parece ser debida por completo a la simetría del crecimiento. Las flores se clasifican entre las producciones más hermosas de la naturaleza; pero se han hecho visibles por contraste con las hojas verdes, y por consiguiente hermosas, al mismo tiempo para que puedan ser fácilmente observadas por los insectos. ~ Charles Darwin,

563:There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved. ~ Charles Darwin,

564:As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications. ~ Charles Darwin,

565:Why is The Origin of Species such a great book? First of all, because it convincingly demonstrates the fact of evolution: it provides a vast and well-chosen body of evidence showing that existing animals and plants cannot have been separately created in their present forms, but must have evolved from earlier forms by slow transformation. ~ Charles Darwin,

566:On the other hand, novels which are works of the imagination, though not of a very high order, have been for years a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often bless all novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily—against which a law ought to be passed. ~ Charles Darwin,

567:Whenever I have found that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfected, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that 'I have worked as hard as I could, and no man can do more than this.' ~ Charles Darwin,

568:My books have sold largely in England, have been translated into many languages, and passed through several editions in foreign countries. I have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years. ~ Charles Darwin,

569:All cosmogonies, whether the Apaches’ or Charles Darwin’s, faced the same problem. They were histories or, better said, stories of things that had occurred in a primordial past, long before there existed anyone capable of recording them. The Apaches’ scorpion and Darwin’s cells in that warm pool somewhere were by definition educated guesses. Darwin, ~ Tom Wolfe,

570:Charles Darwin, who had witnessed the
atrocities perpetrated against Argentina’s native
Indians by Juan Manuel de Rosas, had predicted
that “the country will be in the hands of white
Gaucho savages instead of copper-coloured Indians.
The former being a little superior in education,
as they are inferior in every moral virtue. ~ Jon Lee Anderson,

571:love of science—unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject—industry in observing and collecting facts—and a fair share of invention as well as of common sense. With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points. ~ Charles Darwin,

572:I had gradually come, by this time [1839-01], to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc. and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian. ~ Charles Darwin,

573:El muérdago depende del manzano y de otros pocos árboles, pero solamente en sentido muy artificial puede decirse que lucha con estos árboles, porque si en el mismo árbol crecen muchos de estos parásitos, el árbol languidece y muere. Pero de algunos muérdagos que producen semillas y que crecen juntamente en la misma rama puede decirse con más razón ~ Charles Darwin,

574:A celebrated author and divine has written to me that he has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that he created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws. ~ Charles Darwin,

575:Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relationship to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. ~ Charles Darwin,

576:more commonly but not exclusively to the like sex. It is a fact of some importance to us, that peculiarities appearing in the males of our domestic breeds are often transmitted, either exclusively or in a much greater degree, to the males alone. A much more important rule, which I think may be trusted, is that, at whatever period of life a peculiarity ~ Charles Darwin,

577:If a person asked my advice, before undertaking a long voyage, my answer would depend upon his possessing a decided taste for some branch of knowledge, which could by this means be advanced. No doubt it is a high satisfaction to behold various countries and the many races of mankind, but the pleasures gained at the time do not counterbalance the evils. ~ Charles Darwin,

578:I had also, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely that whenever published fact, a new observation of thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. ~ Charles Darwin,

579:The plow is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly plowed, and still continues to be thus plowed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures. ~ Charles Darwin,

580:In however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, as it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and defend one another, it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring. ~ Charles Darwin,

581:Todo ser que durante el tiempo natural de su vida produce varios huevos o semillas, necesita sufrir destrucción durante algún período de su vida y durante alguna estación o en alguno que otro año, porque de otro modo, por el principio del aumento geométrico llegaría pronto su número a ser tan desordenadamente grande, que no habría país capaz de soportarlo. ~ Charles Darwin,

582:Hoe al die absurde gedragsregels en al die absurde geloofsovertuigingen ontstaan zijn weten we niet; ...: maar het is opvallend hoe een geloof dat in de vroege levensjaren voortdurend werd ingeprent, als het brein nog ontvankelijk is, welhaast de status van instinct verwerft; en de essentie van een instinct is dat het wordt gevolgd, zelfs tegen de ratio in. ~ Charles Darwin,

583:The explanation of types of structure in classes - as resulting from the will of the Deity, to create animals on certain plans - is no explanation. It has not the character of a physical law and is therefore utterly useless. It foretells nothing because we know nothing of the will of the Deity, how it acts and whether constant or inconstant like that of man. ~ Charles Darwin,

584:To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both."—Bacon: "Advancement of Learning". ~ Charles Darwin,

585:... if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being perserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offsping similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

586:I am not very sceptical, — a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the progress of science. A good deal of scepticism in a scientific man is advisable to avoid much loss of time, but I have met with not a few men, who, I feel sure, have often thus been deterred from experiment or observations, which would have proved directly or indirectly serviceable . ~ Charles Darwin,

587:About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service! ~ Charles Darwin,

588:One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one. ~ Charles Darwin,

589:Entre las aves, la contienda es con frecuencia de carácter más pacífico, pues hay gran rivalidad entre los machos de muchas especies para atraer a las hembras, por el canto; o despliegan hermosos plumajes para verse de la mejor manera posible. También hacen extrañas y grotescas figuras, y luego las hembras espectadoras escogen al compañero que más atractivos les ofrece. ~ Charles Darwin,

590:Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand have believed that species undergo modification and that the existing forms of life are the the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms. ~ Charles Darwin,

591:I had, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from memory than favorable ones." (Charles Darwin) (p.131 f) ~ Kathryn Schulz,

592:We have to start at ground zero and ask what it means to have a real connection with God and what it means to pray. We have to recast our whole understanding of God. We live on the other side of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, a whole group of people who have recast the way we think about reality. ~ John Shelby Spong,

593:As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. ~ Charles Darwin,

594:Seeing every height crowned with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams still distinct, we are led to believe that within a period, geologically recent, the unbroken ocean was here spread out. Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact — that mystery of mysteries — the first appearance of new beings on this earth. ~ Charles Darwin,

595:It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. ~ Charles Darwin,

596:Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by his power of artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change to the beauty and infinite complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may be effected in the long course of time by nature's power of selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

597:On the other hand, I am not very sceptical,—a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the progress of science. A good deal of scepticism in a scientific man is advisable to avoid much loss of time, but I have met with not a few men, who, I feel sure, have often thus been deterred from experiment or observations, which would have proved directly or indirectly serviceable. ~ Charles Darwin,

598:El aislamiento también es un elemento importante en la modificación de las especies por medio de la selección natural. En un área limitada o aislada, si no es muy grande, serán generalmente casi uniformes las condiciones orgánicas e inorgánicas de la vida, de modo que la selección natural tenderá a modificar de la misma manera a todos los individuos que varíen en la misma especie. ~ Charles Darwin,

599:Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. ~ Charles Darwin,

600:Science is being daily more and more personified and anthromorphized into a god. By and by they will say that science took our nature upon him, and sent down his only begotten son, Charles Darwin, or Huxley, into the world so that those who believe in him, &c.; and they will burn people for saying that science, after all, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance. ~ Samuel Butler,

601:We can not suppose that all the breeds were suddenly produced as perfect and as useful as we now see them; indeed, in many cases, we know that this has not been their history. The key is man's power of accumulative selection: nature gives successive variations; man adds them up in certain directions useful to him. In this sense he may be said to have made for himself useful breeds. ~ Charles Darwin,

602:Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. ~ Charles Darwin,

603:muchísimas de las variaciones domésticas más marcadas no podrían vivir en estado salvaje, puesto que en muchos casos no sabemos cuál sea el tronco primitivo, y por consiguiente, no podemos decir si se ha verificado o no el retroceso casi perfecto, mientras que para evitar los efectos del cruzamiento sería necesario que una sola variedad hubiera quedado suelta en su nueva residencia. ~ Charles Darwin,

604:Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life. ~ Charles Darwin,

605:Charles Darwin [is my personal favorite Fellow of the Royal Society]. I suppose as a physical scientist I ought to have chosen Newton. He would have won hands down in an IQ test, but if you ask who was the most attractive personality then Darwin is the one you'd wish to meet. Newton was solitary and reclusive, even vain and vindictive in his later years when he was president of the society. ~ Martin Rees,

606:Every one must be struck with astonishment, when he first beholds one of these vast rings of coral-rock, often many leagues in diameter, here and there surmounted by a low verdant island with dazzling white shores, bathed on the outside by the foaming breakers of the ocean, and on the inside surrounding a calm expanse of water, which, from reflection, is of a bright but pale green color. ~ Charles Darwin,

607:Looking to future generations, there is no cause to fear that the social instincts will grow weaker... the social instincts, - the prime principle of man's moral constitution - with the aid of active intellectual powers and the effects of habit, naturally lead to the golden rule, "As ye would that men should do to you; do ye to them likewise"; and this lies at the foundation of morality. ~ Charles Darwin,

608:I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.' ~ Charles Darwin,

609:I have rarely read anything which has interested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a quarter of the book proper. From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. ~ Charles Darwin,

610:It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about and with worms crawling through the damp earth and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms so different from each other and dependent on each other and so complex a manner have all been produced by laws acting around us. ~ Charles Darwin,

611:The publication in 1859 of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that of human thought generally. Its effect was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and to arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science. ~ Francis Galton,

612:They also carried on commerce with other nations. All this clearly shows, as Heer has remarked, that they had at this early age progressed considerably in civilisation; and this again implies a long continued previous period of less advanced civilisation, during which the domesticated animals, kept by different tribes in different districts, might have varied and given rise to distinct races. ~ Charles Darwin,

613:I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words, natural selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

614:I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character. ~ Charles Darwin,

615:It has already been stated that various parts in the same individual, which are exactly alike during an early embryonic period, become widely different and serve for widely different purposes in the adult state. So again it has been shown that generally the embryos of the most distinct species belonging to the same class are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely dissimilar. ~ Charles Darwin,

616:As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been specially created and adapted for that country, being beaten and supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land. ~ Charles Darwin,

617:As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. ~ Charles Darwin,

618:Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection banish the belief of the continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in their structure. ~ Charles Darwin,

619:I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that natural selection has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of modification. ~ Charles Darwin,

620:The love of experiment was very strong in him [Charles Darwin], and I can remember the way he would say, "I shan't be easy till I have tried it," as if an outside force were driving him. He enjoyed experimenting much more than work which only entailed reasoning, and when he was engaged on one of his books which required argument and the marshalling of facts, he felt experimental work to be a rest or holiday. ~ Francis Darwin,

621:I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. ~ Charles Darwin,

622:[Reason tells me of the] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capability of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. ~ Charles Darwin,

623:After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.‎ ~ Charles Darwin,

624:The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being. ~ Charles Darwin,

625:The several difficulties here discussed, namely our not finding in the successive formations infinitely numerous transitional links between the many species which now exist or have existed; the sudden manner in which whole groups of species appear in our European formations; the almost entire absence, as at present known, of fossiliferous formations beneath the Silurian strata, are all undoubtedly of the gravest nature. ~ Charles Darwin,

626:Evolution as described by Charles Darwin is an scientific theory, abundantly reconfirmed, explaining physical phenomena by physical causes. Intelligent Design is a faith-based initiative in rhetorical argument. Should we teach I.D. in America's public schools? Yes, let's do - not as science, but alongside other spiritual beliefs, such as Islam, Zoroastrianism and the Hindu Idea that Earth rests on Chukwa, the giant turtle. ~ David Quammen,

627:Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes and dispositions between two or more domestic races, or between nearly-allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that all are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man. ~ Charles Darwin,

628:As the great botanist Bichat long ago said, if everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de’ Medici, we should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety; and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain characteristics in our women a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common standard. ~ Charles Darwin,

629:Look at a plant in the midst of its range! Why does it not double or quadruple its numbers? We know that it can perfectly well withstand a little more heat or cold, dampness or dryness, for elsewhere it ranges into slightly hotter or colder, damper or drier districts. In this case we can clearly see that if we wish in imagination to give the plant the power of increasing in numbers, we should have to give it some advantage ~ Charles Darwin,

630:The theory which I would offer, is simply, that as the land with the attached reefs subsides very gradually from the action of subterranean causes, the coral-building polypi soon raise again their solid masses to the level of the water: but not so with the land; each inch lost is irreclaimably gone; as the whole gradually sinks, the water gains foot by foot on the shore, till the last and highest peak is finally submerged. ~ Charles Darwin,

631:Puede decirse metafóricamente que la selección natural está haciendo diariamente, y hasta por horas, en todo el mundo, el escrutinio de las variaciones más pequeñas; desechando las que son malas, conservando y acumulando las que son buenas, trabajando insensible y silenciosamente donde y cuando se presenta una oportunidad, en el mejoramiento de todo ser orgánico en relación con sus condiciones orgánicas e inorgánicas de vida. ~ Charles Darwin,

632:It is really laughable to see what different ideas are prominent in various naturalists' minds, when they speak of 'species'; in some, resemblance is everything and descent of little weight-in some, resemblance seems to go for nothing, and Creation the reigning idea-in some, descent is the key,-in some, sterility an unfailing test, with others it is not worth a farthing. It all comes, I believe, from trying to define the undefinable. ~ Charles Darwin,

633:How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! How short his time! Consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature’s productions should be far “truer” in character than man’s productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship? ~ Charles Darwin,

634:Thus, as I believe, natural selection will tend in the long run to reduce any part of the organisation, as soon as it becomes, through changed habits, superfluous, without by any means causing some other part to be largely developed in a corresponding degree. And conversely, that natural selection may perfectly well succeed in largely developing an organ without requiring as a necessary compensation the reduction of some adjoining part. ~ Charles Darwin,

635:I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words, natural selection.

(Letter to A. R. Wallace July 1866) ~ Charles Darwin,

636:L'humanité a connu trois vexations.
La première c'est Nicolas Copernic qui a déduit de ses observations du ciel que la Terre n'était pas au centre de l'univers.
La deuxième c'est Charles Darwin qui a conclu que l'homme descendait d'un primate et était donc un animal comme les autres.
La troisième c'est Sigmund Freud qui a signalé que la motivation réelle de la plupart de nos actes politiques ou artistiques était la sexualité. ~ Bernard Werber,

637:How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far 'truer' in character than man's productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship? ~ Charles Darwin,

638:It is certain that there may be extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small absolute mass of nervous matter: thus the wonderfully diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants are notorious, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so large as the quarter of a small pin's head. Under this point of view, the brain of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of a man. ~ Charles Darwin,

639:They are, in fact, Cheaters, luring men into the foaming waters of carnality without even the vaguest possibility of conception. What a delight, what a subversion of expectation. The healthiest and most womanly of women are in fact a rendition of Amazon queens, self-possessed and self-defined, women whose bodies have an enviable integrity and a fleshy, nonreplicative beauty that razzes Charles Darwin. The buck, the stud, the bull, stops here. ~ Natalie Angier,

640:The number of living creatures of all orders whose existence intimately depends on kelp is wonderful. A great volume might be written describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of seaweed…. I can only compare these great aquatic forests…with terrestrial ones in the intertropical regions. Yet, if in any other country a forest was destroyed, I do not believe so many species of animals would perish as would here, from the destruction of kelp ~ Charles Darwin,

641:As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. —Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 18711 ~ Michael Shermer,

642:Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine... I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. ~ Charles Darwin,

643:Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer. ~ Charles Darwin,

644:like varieties, from other species. Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until it could be shown how the innumerable species inhabiting this world have been modified, so as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which most justly excites our admiration. Naturalists continually refer to external conditions, such as climate, food, etc., as the only possible cause of variation. In one very ~ Charles Darwin,

645:Extinction has only separated groups: it has by no means made them; for if every form which has ever lived on this earth were suddenly to reappear, though it would be quite impossible to give definitions by which each group could be distinguished from other groups, as all would blend together by steps as fine as those between the finest existing varieties, nevertheless a natural classification, or at least a natural arrangement, would be possible. ~ Charles Darwin,

646:Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature: -- no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. ~ Charles Darwin,

647: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 yet to call in some extraordinary agent and to marvel greatly when a species ceases to exist, appears to me much the same as to admit that sickness in the individual is the prelude to death—to feel no surprise at sickness—but when the sick man dies to wonder, and to believe that he died through violence. ~ Charles Darwin,

648:As a young boy, Charles Darwin made friends easily but preferred to spend his time taking long, solitary nature walks. (As an adult he was no different. “My dear Mr. Babbage,” he wrote to the famous mathematician who had invited him to a dinner party, “I am very much obliged to you for sending me cards for your parties, but I am afraid of accepting them, for I should meet some people there, to whom I have sworn by all the saints in Heaven, I never go out.”) ~ Susan Cain,

649:For books [Charles Darwin] had no respect, but merely considered them as tools to be worked with. ... he would cut a heavy book in half, to make it more convenient to hold. He used to boast that he had made Lyell publish the second edition of one of his books in two volumes, instead of in one, by telling him how ho had been obliged to cut it in half. ... his library was not ornamental, but was striking from being so evidently a working collection of books. ~ Francis Darwin,

650:In the latter country alone, very many (probably several hundred) square miles are covered by one mass of these prickly plants, and are impenetrable by man or beast. Over the undulating plains, where these great beds occur, nothing else can now live. Before their introduction, however, the surface must have supported, as in other parts, a rank herbage. I doubt whether any case is on record of an invasion on so grand a scale of one plant over the aborigines. ~ Charles Darwin,

651:E depois percebi. Afinal, não se tratava de uma espécie nova. Ambos pertenciam a um único tipo de gafanhoto. Aqueles que nasciam um pouco mais amarelados viviam até mais tarde durante a estação seca; os esverdeados, aqueles que os pássaros apanhavam, não duravam o suficiente para se tornarem grandes. Os mais amarelados sobreviviam porque estavam mais adequados a suportar um clima tórrido. Charles Darwin tinha razão. A evidência estava mesmo à minha frente. ~ Jacqueline Kelly,

652:Let's find and remedy all our weaknesses before our enemies get a chance to say a word. That is what Charles Darwin did. ...When Darwin completed the manuscript of his immortal book "The Origin Of Species" he realized that the publication of his revolutionary concept of creation would rock the intellectual and religious worlds. So he became his own critic and spent another 15 years checking his data, challenging his reasoning, and criticizing his conclusions. ~ Dale Carnegie,

653:With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. ~ Charles Darwin,

654:Finally, it may not be a logical deduction, but to my imagination it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, ants making slaves, the larvae of ichneumonidae feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars, not as specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings—namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die. ~ Charles Darwin,

655:When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin Of The Species, no one could have known that the ice cap would melt, that the waters would rise and that life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. We came from water and now, with the help of stem cell technology and cloning, we must go back to it to survive.When the waters rise, humanity will go back to the place from whence it came.Make no mistake, this is not sci-fi, this is evolution ~ Alexander McQueen,

656:I have just finished my sketch of my species theory. If as I believe that my theory is true & if it be accepted even by one competent judge, it will be a considerable step in science. I therefore write this, in case of my sudden death, as my most solemn & last request, which I am sure you will consider the same as if legally entered in my will, that you will devote 400£ to its publication & further will yourself, or through Hensleigh [Wedgwood], take trouble in promoting it. ~ Charles Darwin,

657:Todo animal en estado natural se reproduce con regularidad; y sin embargo, en una especie fijada por largo tiempo, se hace necesariamente imposible un gran crecimiento en número, y es preciso que obre un freno de esta o de la otra manera. Es, sin embargo, muy raro que podamos decir, con certeza, hablando de tal o cual especie, en qué período de la vida, o en qué época del año, o en qué intervalos, cortos o largos, comienza a obrar este freno o cuál es su verdadera naturaleza. ~ Charles Darwin,

658:I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver’s Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr Lincoln, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. ~ Ray Bradbury,

659:Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. The key to our being here now is time, 4.54 billion (Earth) years of time. Nuclear fission wasn't discovered until long after Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace published their original books and papers, for example. Our ability to measure atomic masses wasn't developed until long after their deaths. These features of nature enabled us to reckon the age of the Earth and compare it with speciation rates here. ~ Bill Nye,

660:How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason. ~ Charles Darwin,

661:As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. ~ Charles Darwin,

662:To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree...The difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection , though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered subversive of the theory. ~ Charles Darwin,

663:For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs-as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions. ~ Charles Darwin,

664:For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions. ~ Charles Darwin,

665:This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.

{The phrase 'survival of the fittest' was not originated by Charles Darwin, though he discussed Spencer's 'excellent expression' in a letter to Alfred Russel Wallace (Jul 1866).} ~ Herbert Spencer,

666:Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. ~ Charles Darwin,

667:The lower animals, on the other hand, must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be rendered stronger, or acquire more effective teeth or claws, in order to defend themselves from new enemies; or they must be reduced in size so as to escape detection and danger. When they migrate into a colder climate they must become clothed with thicker fur, or have their constitutions altered. If they fail to be thus modified, they will cease to exist. ~ Charles Darwin,

668:Causes of Variability — Effects of Habit and the use and disuse of Parts — Correlated Variation — Inheritance — Character of Domestic Varieties — Difficulty of distinguishing between Varieties and Species — Origin of Domestic Varieties from one or more Species — Domestic Pigeons, their Differences and Origin — Principles of Selection, anciently followed, their Effects — Methodical and Unconscious Selection — Unknown Origin of our Domestic Productions — Circumstances favourable to Man's power of Selection. ~ Charles Darwin,

669:Con respecto a la creencia de que los seres orgánicos fueron creados hermosos para recreo del hombre (creencia que, se ha anunciado, derriba toda nuestra teoría) debemos primero hacer notar que el sentido de la belleza depende evidentemente de la naturaleza del espíritu, con independencia de toda cualidad real en el objeto admirado, y que la idea de lo que es hermoso ni es innata ni inalterable. Vemos esto, por ejemplo, en los hombres de razas diferentes, que admiran un tipo enteramente distinto de belleza ~ Charles Darwin,

670:La selección natural puede modificar la larva de un insecto y adaptarla a una porción de contingencias completamente distintas de las que conciernen al insecto ya maduro, y estas modificaciones pueden afectar por correlación la estructura del adulto. Así también, por el contrario, las modificaciones de este pueden afectar la estructura de la larva; pero en todos los casos, la selección natural asegurará que dichas modificaciones no sean en manera alguna nocivas, ya que si lo fueran la especie se extinguiría. ~ Charles Darwin,

671:The more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become, - that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, - that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, - that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses; - by such reflections as these... I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. ~ Charles Darwin,

672:It is well-known that those who have charge of young infants, that it is difficult to feel sure when certain movements about their mouths are really expressive; that is when they really smile. Hence I carefully watched my own infants. One of them at the age of forty-five days, and being in a happy frame of mind, smiled... I observed the same thing on the following day: but on the third day the child was not quite well and there was no trace of a smile, and this renders it probable that the previous smiles were real. ~ Charles Darwin,

673:efore the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation series of books began to appear in 1979, the scientific autobiography was a largely unfamiliar genre. One recalls Cajal's extraordinary Recollections of My Life, translated into English in 1937, and the little gem of autobiography written by Charles Darwin for his grandchildren in 1876. One supposes that this form of scientific writing is scarce because busy scientists would rather continue to work on scientific problems than to indulge in a retrospective exercise using a writing style ~ Anonymous,

674:At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a 'tendency to progression', 'adaptations from the slow willing of animals', &c! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends. ~ Charles Darwin,

675:I remembered Grandam telling me about an early Old Earth scientist, one Charles Darwin, who had come up with one of the early theories of evolution or gravitation or somesuch, and how—although raised a devout Christian even before the reward of the cruciform—he had become an atheist while studying a terrestrial wasp that paralyzed some large species of spider, planted its embryo, and let the spider recover and go about its business until it was time for the hatched wasp larvae to burrow its way out of the living spider’s abdomen. ~ Dan Simmons,

676:I am Plato's Republic. Mr. Simmons is Marcus. I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and-this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. ~ Ray Bradbury,

677:The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. ~ Charles Darwin,

678:At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. ~ Charles Darwin,

679:I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. ~ Charles Darwin,

680:It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo stillmore complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed. ~ Charles Darwin,

681:Why is The Origin of Species such a great book? First of all, because it convincingly demonstrates the fact of evolution: it provides a vast and well-chosen body of evidence showing that existing animals and plants cannot have been separately created in their present forms, but must have evolved from earlier forms by slow transformation. And secondly, because the theory of natural selection, which the Origin so fully and so lucidly expounds, provides a mechanism by which such transformation could and would automatically be produced. ~ Charles Darwin,

682:But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. ~ Charles Darwin,

683:Questions like, "Is my suit OK?", or "Is my job performance satisfactory?", are impossible to think about in the absence of a suitable frame of reference. For an interview suit to serve its purpose, it must make you look good relative to other candidates for the job you want. For your job performance to be satisfactory, it must compare favorably with the performance of others who want the same promotion you do. As Charles Darwin saw clearly, much of life is graded on the curve, and conventional economic models completely ignore that fact. ~ Robert H Frank,

684:We do not steadily bear in mind how profoundly ignorant we are of the conditions of existence of every animal; nor do we always remember that some check is constantly preventing the too rapid increase of every organised being left in a state of nature. The supply of food, on an average, remains constant, yet the tendency in every animal to increase by propagation is geometrical; and its surprising effects have nowhere been more astonishingly shown, than in the case of the European animals run wild during the last few centuries in America. ~ Charles Darwin,

685:Y como el muérdago es diseminado por los pájaros, de estos depende su existencia, pudiendo metafóricamente decirse que luchan contra otras plantas fructíferas, para tentar a los pájaros a que los consuman y que de este modo esparzan su semilla. En estos diversos sentidos, en que se funden los unos en los otros, creemos conveniente usar el término general "lucha por la existencia". RAZÓN GEOMÉTRICA DEL CRECIMIENTO. Luchar por la existencia es inevitable consecuencia de la elevada proporción en que tienden a aumentarse todos los seres orgánicos. ~ Charles Darwin,

686:el sentido de la belleza depende evidentemente de la naturaleza del espíritu, con independencia de toda cualidad real en el objeto admirado, y que la idea de lo que es hermoso ni es innata ni inalterable. Vemos esto, por ejemplo, en los hombres de razas diferentes, que admiran un tipo enteramente distinto de belleza en sus mujeres. Si los objetos hermosos hubieran sido creados únicamente para goce del hombre, habría que probar que antes de que el hombre apareciese había menos belleza en la faz de la tierra que desde que él se presentó en escena. ~ Charles Darwin,

687:I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world. ~ Charles Darwin,

688:Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. ~ Charles Darwin,

689:The idea that we were designed by our past was the principal insight of Charles Darwin. He was the first to realize that you can abandon divine creation of species without abandoning the argument from design. Every living thing is “designed” quite unconsciously by the selective reproduction of its own ancestors to suit a particular life-style. Human nature was as carefully designed by natural selection for the use of a social, bipedal, originally African ape as human stomachs were designed for the use of an omnivorous African ape with a taste for meat. ~ Matt Ridley,

690:Mr. J.S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, "Utilitarianism," of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality," but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? ~ Charles Darwin,

691:The more I study nature, the more I become impressed with ever-increasing force with the conclusion, that the contrivances and beautiful adaptations slowly acquired through each part occasionally varying in a slight degree but in many ways, with the preservation or natural selection of those variations which are beneficial to the organism under the complex and ever-varying conditions of life, transcend in an incomparable degree the contrivances and adaptations which the most fertile imagination of man could suggest with unlimited time at his disposal. ~ Charles Darwin,

692:The routines of almost all famous writers, from Charles Darwin to John Grisham, similarly emphasise specific starting times, or number of hours worked, or words written. Such rituals provide a structure to work in, whether or not the feeling of motivation or inspiration happens to be present. They let people work alongside negative or positive emotions, instead of getting distracted by the effort of cultivating only positive ones. ‘Inspiration is for amateurs,’ the artist Chuck Close once memorably observed. ‘The rest of us just show up and get to work. ~ Oliver Burkeman,

693:I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to show why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower from, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance. ~ Charles Darwin,

694:Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any language. Especial attention was paid to versemaking, and this I could never do well. I had many friends, and got together a good collection of old verses, which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could work into any subject. ~ Charles Darwin,

695:Of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important. This sense, as Mackintosh remarks, "has a rightful supremacy over every other principle of human action"; it is summed up in that short but imperious word "ought," so full of high significance. It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment's hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, impelled simply by the deep feeling of right or duty, to sacrifice it in some great cause. ~ Charles Darwin,

696:Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have amounted to, has been determined, as far as I can judge, by complex and diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most important have been—the love of science—unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject—industry in observing and collecting facts—and a fair share of invention as well as of common sense. With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points. ~ Charles Darwin,

697:The wide-ranging birds that visit islands of the ocean in migration may also have a good deal to do with the distribution of plants, and perhaps even of some insects and minute land shells. From a ball of mud taken from a bird's plumage, Charles Darwin raised 82 separate plants, belonging to 5 distinct species! Many plant seeds have hooks or prickles, ideal for attachment to feathers. Such birds as the Pacific golden plover, which annually flies from the mainland of Alaska to the Hawaiian Islands and even beyond, probably figure in many riddles of plant distribution. ~ Rachel Carson,

698:218.The same principle probably explains why dogs, when feeling affectionate, like rubbing against their masters and being rubbed or patted by them, for from the nursing of their puppies, contact with a beloved object has become firmly associated in their minds with the emotion of love. The feeling of affection of a dog towards his master is combined with a strong sense of submission, which is akin to fear. Hence dogs not only lower their bodies and crouch a little as they approach their masters, but sometimes throw themselves on the ground with their bellies upwards. ~ Charles Darwin,

699:Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As ~ Charles Darwin,

700:My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain that alone on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine would not, I suppose, have thus suffered, and if I had to live my life over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. ~ Charles Darwin,

701:Man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger, but whether relatively to the larger size of his body, in comparison with that of woman, has not, I believe been fully ascertained. In woman the face is rounder; the jaws and the base of the skull smaller; the outlines of her body rounder, in parts more prominent; and her pelvis is broader than in man; but this latter character may perhaps be considered rather as a primary than a secondary sexual character. She comes to maturity at an earlier age than man. ~ Charles Darwin,

702:Pero en cierto sentido puede decirse que las condiciones de vida no solamente causan la variabilidad, directa e indirectamente, sino que de igual manera incluyen la selección natural, porque las condiciones determinan si ha de sobrevivir esta o aquella variedad. Pero cuando el hombre es agente selector, claramente vemos que los dos elementos de cambio son distintos; la variabilidad está hasta cierto punto excitada, aunque la voluntad del hombre es en cierto sentido la que acumula las variaciones, y esta última causa es la que motiva que sobrevivan los más aptos en el estado natural. ~ Charles Darwin,

703:Science likes to measure things, to test hypotheses and collect data. Until quite recently science wasn’t testing hypotheses about animal feelings. From the time Charles Darwin wrote his last book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) to about the time Neil Armstrong left footprints on the moon nearly a century later (1969), prevailing scientific dogma denied animals their hearts and minds. A nonhuman animal was viewed as merely a responder to external stimuli. The idea that a walrus made decisions, or that a parakeet felt emotions, was considered unscientific. ~ Jonathan Balcombe,

704:The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humble-bees, ... says "Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice." Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district! ~ Charles Darwin,

705:few countries have undergone more remarkable changes, since the year 1535, when the first colonist of La Plata landed with seventy-two horses. The countless herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, not only have altered the whole aspect of the vegetation, but they have almost banished the guanaco, deer, and ostrich. Numberless other changes must likewise have taken place; the wild pig in some parts probably replaces the peccari; packs of wild dogs may be heard howling on the wooded banks of the less-frequented streams; and the common cat, altered into a large and fierce animal, inhabits rocky hills. ~ Charles Darwin,

706:But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge , as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his godlike intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system - with all these exalted powers - Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. ~ Charles Darwin,

707:As man gradually advanced in intellectual power, and was enabled to trace the more remote consequences of his actions; as he acquired sufficient knowledge to reject baneful customs and superstitions; as he regarded more and more, not only the welfare, but the happiness of his fellow-men; as from habit, following on beneficial experience, instruction and example, his sympathies became more tender and widely diffused, extending to men of all races, to the imbecile, maimed,
and other useless members of society, and finally to the lower animals,—so would the standard of his morality rise higher and higher. ~ Charles Darwin,

708:Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage. Although some species may be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in numbers, all cannot do so, for the world would not hold them. ~ Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species,

709:When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as when we look at any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I speak from experience, will the study of natural history become! ~ Charles Darwin,

710:The weather is quite delicious. Yesterday, after writing to you, I strolled a little beyond the glade for an hour and a half and enjoyed myself--the fresh yet dark green of the grand Scotch firs, the brown of the catkins of the old birches, with their white stems, and a fringe of distant green from the larches, made an excessively pretty view. At last I fell asleep on the grass, and awoke with a chorus of birds singing around me, and squirrels running up the trees, and some woodpeckers laughing, and it was as pleasant and rural a scene as I ever saw, and I did not care one penny how any of the beasts or birds had been formed. ~ Charles Darwin,

711:(It is of no little interest and irony that Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin and proponent of selective breeding in humans in order to obtain a "highly gifted race of man," was himself subject to "nervous breakdowns"; he was also appreciative of the "thin partitions" between greatness and psychopathology. Dr. Daniel Kevles, in his book In the Name of Eugenics, quotes Galton as saying that "men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.") ~ Kay Redfield Jamison,

712:The upper lip during the act of grinning is retracted, as in snarling, so that the canines are exposed, and the ears are drawn backwards; but the general appearance of the animal clearly shows that anger is not felt. Sir C. Bell[3] remarks "Dogs, in their expression of fondness, have a slight eversion of the lips, and grin and sniff amidst their gambols, in a way that resembles laughter." Some persons speak of the grin as a smile, but if it had been really a smile, we should see a similar, though more pronounced, movement of the lips and ears, when dogs utter their bark of joy; but this is not the case, although a bark of joy often follows a grin. ~ Charles Darwin,

713:There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures. Each part assumes its proper dimensions: continents are not looked at in the light of islands, or islands considered as mere specks, which are, in truth, larger than many kingdoms of Europe. Africa, or North and South America, are well-sounding names, and easily pronounced; but it is not until having sailed for weeks along small portions of their shores, that one is thoroughly convinced what vast spaces on our immense world these names imply. ~ Charles Darwin,

714:CONTRARY TO THE COMMON ASSUMPTION , Charles Darwin did not originate the idea of evolution. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the mere fact of evolution had been around for a long time, and most thinkers of the time were perfectly content to leave it at that. The absence of a theory to explain evolutionary change didn’t trouble them, wasn’t experienced as a pressure, as it was by Darwin. He knew there had to be some intelligible mechanism or dynamic that would account for it, and this is what he went looking for—with well-known results. In his Origin of Species, he wasn’t announcing the fact of evolution, he was trying to make sense of that fact. ~ Daniel Quinn,

715:...But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice... I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. ~ Charles Darwin,

716:Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained--namely, that each species has been independently created--is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. ~ Charles Darwin,

717:For these two years I have been gravitating towards your doctrines, and since the publication of your primula paper with accelerated velocity. By about this time next year I expect to have shot past you, and to find you pitching into me for being more Darwinian than yourself. However, you have set me going, and must just take the consequences, for I warn you I will stop at no point so long as clear reasoning will take me further.

{Letter of support to Charles Darwin on his theory of evolution} ~ Thomas Henry Huxley,

718:as is always the case with scientific geniuses, Einstein’s theories would exist even if he had not. Special relativity, general relativity, and the photon model of light might not have been developed by the same individual, but someone would have sussed them out. Henri Poincaré, Hendrik Lorentz and others worked out much of relativity before 1905, just as Gottfried Leibniz independently worked out the calculus in parallel with Newton, and Alfred Russel Wallace developed natural selection in isolation from Charles Darwin. Historians of science once subscribed to a ‘Great Man’ theory, but we now know that transformative ideas emerge from the work of many talented individuals, instead of emerging ex nihilo from one brilliant mind. ~ Anonymous,

719:The Indians were Araucanians from the south of Chile; several hundreds in number, and highly disciplined. They first appeared in two bodies on a neighbouring hill; having there dismounted, and taken off their fur mantles, they advanced naked to the charge. The only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear-head. My informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would cut all their throats. As this would probably have been the result of their entrance under any circumstances, the answer was given by a volley of musketry. ~ Charles Darwin,

720:In a completely different era and domain, Charles Darwin hypothesized that the emergence of each new species was a gradual process, taking place through the slow transformation of existing species into their somewhat-modified offspring. Yet evidence for such continuous change was not only lacking back then but is scarce even today, having prompted Darwin to label it "the gravest objection [that] can be urged against my theory." Instead, over millions of years species in the fossil record show little or no evolutionary change. New species tend to appear over periods spanning tens of thousands of years, a split second in terms of all evolutionary time. Evolution proceeds in bursts, which are in turn preserved in the fossil record. ~ Albert L szl Barab si,

721:My geological examination of the country generally created a good deal of surprise amongst the Chilenos: it was long before they could be convinced that I was not hunting for mines. This was sometimes troublesome: I found the most ready way of explaining my employment, was to ask them how it was that they themselves were not curious concerning earthquakes and volcanos? – why some springs were hot and others cold? – why there were mountains in Chile, and not a hill in La Plata? These bare questions at once satisfied and silenced the greater number; some, however (like a few in England who are a century behind hand), thought that all such inquiries were useless and impious; and that it was quite sufficient that God had thus made the mountains. ~ Charles Darwin,

722:This was the scientific age, and people wanted to believe that their traditions were in line with the new era, but this was impossible if you thought that these myths should be understood literally. Hence the furor occasioned by The Origin of Species, published by Charles Darwin. The book was not intended as an attack on religion, but was a sober exploration of a scientific hypothesis. But because by this time people were reading the cosmogonies of Genesis as though they were factual, many Christians felt--and still feel--that the whole edifice of faith was in jeopardy. Creation stories had never been regarded as historically accurate; their purpose was therapeutic. But once you start reading Genesis as scientifically valid, you have bad science and bad religion. ~ Karen Armstrong,

723:When Charles Darwin was trying to decide whether he should propose to his cousin Emma Wedgwood, he got out a pencil and paper and weighed every possible consequence. In favor of marriage he listed children, companionship, and the 'charms of music and female chit-chat.' Against marriage he listed the 'terrible loss of time,' lack of freedom to go where he wished, the burden of visiting relatives, the expense and anxiety provoked by children, the concern that 'perhaps my wife won't like London,' and having less money to spend on books. Weighing one column against the other produced a narrow margin of victory, and at the bottom Darwin scrawled, 'Marry—Marry—Marry Q.E.D.' Quod erat demonstrandum, the mathematical sign-off that Darwin himself restated in English: 'It being proved necessary to Marry. ~ Brian Christian,

724:Youatt gives an excellent illustration of the effects of a course of selection which may be considered as unconscious, in so far that the breeders could never have expected, or even wished, to produce the result which ensued—namely, the production of the distinct strains. The two flocks of Leicester sheep kept by Mr. Buckley and Mr. Burgess, as Mr. Youatt remarks, "Have been purely bred from the original stock of Mr. Bakewell for upwards of fifty years. There is not a suspicion existing in the mind of any one at all acquainted with the subject that the owner of either of them has deviated in any one instance from the pure blood of Mr. Bakewell's flock, and yet the difference between the sheep possessed by these two gentlemen is so great that they have the appearance of being quite different varieties. ~ Charles Darwin,

725:The Newtonian vision describes a reliable place inhabited by well-behaved and easily identifiable matter. The world view arising from these discoveries is also bolstered by the philosophical implications of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, with its suggestion that survival is available only to the genetically rugged individual. These, in their essence, are stories that idealize separateness. From the moment we are born, we are told that for every winner there must be a loser. From that constricted vision we have fashioned our world. The Field tells a radically new scientific story. The latest chapter of that story, written by a group of largely unknown frontier scientific explorers, suggests that at our essence we exist as a unity, a relationship – utterly interdependent, the parts affecting the whole ~ Lynne McTaggart,

726:Humboldt's glorious descriptions are & will for ever be unparalleled: but even he with his dark blue skies & the rare union of poetry with science which he so strongly displays when writing on tropical scenery, with all this falls far short of the truth,he averred." The delight one experiences in such times bewilders the mind; if the eye attempts to follow the flight of a gaudy butter-fly, it is arrested by some strange tree or fruit; if watching an insect one forgets it in the stranger flower it is crawling over; if turning to admire the splendor of the scenery, the individual character of the foreground fixes the attention. The mind is a chaos of delight, out of which a world of future & more quiet pleasure will arise. I am at present fit only to read Humboldt; he like another sun illuminates everything I behold. ~ Charles Darwin,

727:Nothing at first can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts should have been perfected, not by means superior to, though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor. Nevertheless, this difficulty, though appearing to our imagination insuperably great, cannot be considered real if we admit the following propositions, namely,— that gradations in the perfection of any organ or instinct, which we may consider, either do now exist or could have existed, each good of its kind,— that all organs and instincts are, in ever so slight a degree, variable,— and, lastly, that there is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation of each profitable deviation of structure or instinct. The truth of these propositions cannot, I think, be disputed. ~ Charles Darwin,

728:Emotion is not a defect in an otherwise perfect reasoning machine. Reason, unfettered from human feeling, has led to as many horrors as any crusader’s zeal. What use is pity in a world devoted to maximizing efficiency and productivity? Scientific husbandry tells us to weed out the sick, the infirm, the weak. The ruthless efficiency of euthanasia initiatives and ethnic cleansing are but the programmatic application of Nietzsche’s point: from any quantifiable cost-benefit analysis, the principles of animal husbandry should apply to the human race. Charles Darwin himself acknowledged that strict obedience to “hard reason” rather than sympathy for fellow humans would represent a sacrifice of “the noblest part of our nature.”6 It is the human heart resonating with empathy, not the logical brain attuned to the mathematics of efficiency, that revolts at cruelty and inhumanity. p15 ~ Terryl L Givens,

729:[...] it is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable. This is a simple thing to say, but the profound feeling of it made a Jesus, a St. Augustine, a St. Francis, a Roger Bacon, a Charles Darwin, and an Einstein. Each of them in his own tempo and with his own voice discovered and reaffirmed with astonishment the knowledge that all things are one thing and that one thing is all things—plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time. It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again. ~ John Steinbeck,

730:This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character. In the next chapter I shall discuss the complex and little known laws of variation and of correlation of growth. In the four succeeding chapters, the most apparent and gravest difficulties on the theory will be given: namely, first, the difficulties of transitions, or in understanding how a simple being or a simple organ can be changed and perfected into a highly developed being or elaborately constructed organ; secondly the subject of Instinct, or the mental powers of animals, thirdly, Hybridism, or the infertility of species and the fertility of varieties when intercrossed; and fourthly, the imperfection of the Geological Record. In ~ Charles Darwin,

731:If about a dozen genera of birds had become extinct or were unknown, who would have ventured to have surmised that birds might have existed which used their wings solely as flappers, like the logger-headed duck (Micropterus of Eyton); as fins in the water and front legs on the land, like the penguin; as sails, like the ostrich; and functionally for no purpose, like the Apteryx. Yet the structure of each of these birds is good for it, under the conditions of life to which it is exposed, for each has to live by a struggle; but it is not necessarily the best possible under all possible conditions. It must not be inferred from these remarks that any of the grades of wing-structure here alluded to, which perhaps may all have resulted from disuse, indicate the natural steps by which birds have acquired their perfect power of flight; but they serve, at least, to show what diversified means of transition are possible. ~ Charles Darwin,

732:Darwin, landing in Brazil in 1832, had a similar reaction, colored by his reading of his predecessor." Humboldt's glorious descriptions are & will for ever be unparalleled: but even he with his dark blue skies & the rare union of poetry with science which he so strongly displays when writing on tropical scenery, with all this falls far short of the truth,he averred." The delight one experiences in such times bewilders the mind; if the eye attempts to follow the flight of a gaudy butter-fly, it is arrested by some strange tree or fruit; if watching an insect one forgets it in the stranger flower it is crawling over; if turning to admire the splendor of the scenery, the individual character of the foreground fixes the attention. The mind is a chaos of delight, out of which a world of future & more quiet pleasure will arise. I am at present fit only to read Humboldt; he like another sun illuminates everything I behold. ~ Charles Darwin,

733:It is impossible to behold these waves without feeling a conviction that an island, though built of the hardest rock, let it be porphyry, granite, or quartz, would ultimately yield and be demolished by such an irresistible power. Yet these low, insignificant coral-islets stand and are victorious: for here another power, as an antagonist, takes part in the contest. The organic forces separate the atoms of carbonate of lime, one by one, from the foaming breakers, and unite them into a symmetrical structure. Let the hurricane tear up its thousand huge fragments; yet what will that tell against the accumulated labour of myriads of architects at work night and day, month after month? […] We feel surprise when travellers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals! This is a wonder which does not at first strike the eye of the body, but, after reflection, the eye of reason. ~ Charles Darwin,

734:During the Society's early years, no member personified the organization's eccentricities or audacious mission more than Sir Francis Galton. A cousin of Charles Darwin's, he had been a child prodigy who, by the age of four, could read and recite Latin. He went on to concoct myriad inventions. They included a ventilating top hat; a machine called a Gumption-Reviver, which periodically wet his head to keep him awake during endless study; underwater goggles; and a rotating-vane steam engine. Suffering from periodic nervous breakdowns––"sprained brain," as he called it––he had a compulsion to measure and count virtually everything. He quantified the sensitivity of animal hearing, using a walking stick that could make an inconspicuous whistle; the efficacy of prayer; the average age of death in each profession (lawyers: 66.51; doctors: 67.04); the exact amount of rope needed to break a criminal's neck while avoiding decapitation; and levels of boredom (at meetings of the Royal Geographical Society he would count the rate of fidgets among each member of the audience). ~ David Grann,

735:It may be worth while to illustrate this view of classification, by taking the case of languages. If we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of the races of man would afford the best classification of the various languages now spoken throughout the world; and if all extinct languages, and all intermediate and slowly changing dialects, were to be included, such an arrangement would be the only possible one. Yet it might be that some ancient languages had altered very little and had given rise to few new languages, whilst others had altered much owing to the spreading, isolation, and state of civilisation of the several co-descended races, and had thus given rise to many new dialects and languages. The various degrees of difference between the languages of the same stock, would have to be expressed by groups subordinate to groups; but the proper or even the only possible arrangement would still be genealogical; and this would be strictly natural, as it would connect together all languages, extinct and recent, by the closest affinities, and would give the filiation and origin of each tongue. ~ Charles Darwin,

736:It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children — those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own — being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty... ~ Charles Darwin,

737:Collins’s understanding of the Fox-Hedgehog parable is questionable from the start. He suggests that people who have had the greatest impact on humanity—including Darwin, Marx, and Einstein—were Hedgehogs, consumed with a single and simple idea, then pursuing it with dogged focus. But Isaiah Berlin made no such claim, observing only that Foxes and Hedgehogs were two different ways of looking at human experience. There have been great people in both categories. According to Berlin, Plato was a Hedgehog but Aristotle a Fox; Dante a Hedgehog but Shakespeare a Fox; Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche were Hedgehogs while Goethe and Joyce were Foxes. Collins’s assertion about Darwin is also doubtful: After all, Charles Darwin was raised as a conventional Christian and arrived at his revolutionary ideas about natural selection after decades of careful observation and reflection—challenging conventional dogma is not the sort of thing a Hedgehog normally does. It’s not even clear that Marx was a Hedgehog, as his favorite epigram—De omnibus disputandum (Everything must be doubted)—has a distinctly Foxlike ring. Many so-called Marxists may be Hedgehogs, but of course that’s a different matter. ~ Philip M Rosenzweig,

738:Después de que en 1610 Galileo descubriera las lunas de Júpiter con su telescopio casero, sus críticos religiosos condenaron su nueva teoría centrada en el Sol afirmando que era un destronamiento del hombre. No sospechaban que ése no era más que un primer destronamiento. Cien años más tarde, el estudio de las capas sedimentarias llevado a cabo por el granjero escocés James Hutton tumbó el cálculo que había hecho la Iglesia de la edad de la Tierra, afirmando que era ochocientos mil años más antigua. No mucho después, Charles Darwin relegó a los seres humanos a una rama más del populoso reino animal. A principios del siglo XX, la mecánica cuántica alteró de manera irreparable nuestra idea del tejido de la realidad. En 1953, Francis Crick y James Watson descifraron la estructura del ADN, reemplazando el misterioso fantasma de la vida por algo que podemos anotar en secuencias de cuatro letras y almacenar en un ordenador. Y a lo largo del siglo pasado, la neurociencia ha demostrado que la mente consciente ya no es la que lleva el timón de nuestra vida. Apenas cuatrocientos años después de nuestra caída del centro del universo, hemos experimentado la caída del centro de nosotros mismos. ~ David Eagleman,

739:The 'Vestiges of Creation' appeared in 1844. In the tenth and much improved edition (1853) the anonymous author [Robert Chambers] says (p. 155): ---'The proposition determined on after much consideration is, that the several series of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most recent, are, under the providence of God, the results, first, of an impulse {teleologic] which has been imparted to the forms of life, advancing them, in definite times, by generation, through grades of organisation terminating in the highest dicotyledons and vertebrata, these grades being few in number, and generally marked by intervals of organic character, which we find to be a practical difficulty in ascertaining affinities;
second, of another impulse [teleonomic] connected with the vital forces, tending, in the course of generations, to modify organic structures in accordance with external circumstances, as food, the nature of the habitat, and the meteoric [n.b.] agencies, these being the 'adaptations' of the natural theologian." The author apparently believes that organisation progresses by sudden [quantum] leaps, but the effects produced by the conditions of life are gradual. ~ Charles Darwin,

740:Inside Hod Lipson’s Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University, fantastically shaped robots are learning to crawl and fly, probably even as you read this. One looks like a slithering tower of rubber bricks, another like a helicopter with dragonfly wings, yet another like a shape-shifting Tinkertoy. These robots were not designed by any human engineer but created by evolution, the same process that gave rise to the diversity of life on Earth. Although the robots initially evolve inside a computer simulation, once they look proficient enough to make it in the real world, solid versions are automatically fabricated by 3-D printing. These are not yet ready to take over the world, but they’ve come a long way from the primordial soup of simulated parts they started with. The algorithm that evolved these robots was invented by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century. He didn’t think of it as an algorithm at the time, partly because a key subroutine was still missing. Once James Watson and Francis Crick provided it in 1953, the stage was set for the second coming of evolution: in silico instead of in vivo, and a billion times faster. Its prophet was a ruddy-faced, perpetually grinning midwesterner by the name of John Holland. ~ Pedro Domingos,

741:Science claims a search for truth that would seem to protect it from conservatism and the irrationality of habit: It is a culture of innovation. Yet when Charles Darwin published his ideas of evolution, he faced fiercer opposition from his fellow scientists than from religious authorities. His theories challenged too many fixed ideas. Jonas Salk ran into the same wall with his radical innovations in immunology, as did Max Planck with his revolutionizing of physics. Planck later wrote of the scientific opposition he faced, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” The answer to this innate conservatism is to play the courtier’s game. Galileo did this at the beginning of his scientific career; he later became more confrontational, and paid for it. So pay lip service to tradition. Identify the elements in your revolution that can be made to seem to build on the past. Say the right things, make a show of conformity, and meanwhile let your theories do their radical work. Play with appearances and respect past protocol. This is true in every arena—science being no exception. ~ Robert Greene,

742:Why should I have to hide the fact that I don't believe there’s a supreme being? There’s no proof of it. There’s no harm in saying you’re an atheist. It doesn't mean you treat people any differently. I live by the Golden Rule to do unto others, as you'd want to be treated.

I just simply don't believe in religion, and I don’t believe necessarily that there’s a supreme being that watches over all of us. I follow the teachings of George Carlin. George said he worshipped the sun. He was a fellow atheist. I’m in good company … Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Charles Darwin. It’s not like I’m not with good company and intelligent people. There have been some good, intelligent atheists who have lived in the world. ~ Jesse Ventura,

743:When we compare the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us is, that they generally differ more from each other than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. And if we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most different climates and treatment, we are driven to conclude that this great variability is due to our domestic productions having been raised under conditions of life not so uniform as, and somewhat different from, those to which the parent species had been exposed under nature. There is, also, some probability in the view propounded by Andrew Knight, that this variability may be partly connected with excess of food. It seems clear that organic beings must be exposed during several generations to new conditions to cause any great amount of variation; and that, when the organisation has once begun to vary, it generally continues varying for many generations. No case is on record of a variable organism ceasing to vary under cultivation. Our oldest cultivated plants, such as wheat, still yield new varieties: our oldest domesticated animals are still capable of rapid improvement or modification. ~ Charles Darwin,

744:Humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages upon its naive self-love. The first was when it realized that our earth was not the center of the universe, but only a tiny speck in a world-system of a magnitude hardly conceivable; this is associated in our minds with the name of Copernicus, although Alexandrian doctrines taught something very similar. The second was when biological research robbed man of his peculiar privilege of having been specially created, and relegated him to a descent from the animal world, implying an ineradicable animal nature in him: this transvaluation has been accomplished in our own time upon the instigation of Charles Darwin, Wallace, and their predecessors, and not without the most violent opposition from their contemporaries. But man's craving for grandiosity is now suffering the third and most bitter blow from present-day psychological research which is endeavoring to prove to the ego of each one of us that he is not even master in his own house, but that he must remain content with the veriest scraps of information about what is going on unconsciously in his own mind. We psycho-analysts were neither the first nor the only ones to propose to mankind that they should look inward; but it appears to be our lot to advocate it most insistently and to support it by empirical evidence which touches every man closely. ~ Sigmund Freud,

745:We shall best understand the probable course of natural selection by taking the case of a country undergoing some physical change, for instance, of climate. The proportional numbers of its inhabitants would almost immediately undergo a change, and some species might become extinct. We may conclude, from what we have seen of the intimate and complex manner in which the inhabitants of each country are bound together, that any change in the numerical proportions of some of the inhabitants, independently of the change of climate itself, would most seriously affect many of the others. If the country were open on its borders, new forms would certainly immigrate, and this also would seriously disturb the relations of some of the former inhabitants. Let it be remembered how powerful the influence of a single introduced tree or mammal has been shown to be. But in the case of an island, or of a country partly surrounded by barriers, into which new and better adapted forms could not freely enter, we should then have places in the economy of nature which would assuredly be better filled up, if some of the original inhabitants were in some manner modified; for, had the area been open to immigration, these same places would have been seized on by intruders. In such case, every slight modification, which in the course of ages chanced to arise, and which in any way favoured the individuals of any of the species, by better adapting them to their altered conditions, would tend to be preserved; and natural selection would thus have free scope for the work of improvement. ~ Charles Darwin,

746:¿Cómo podemos explicarnos que las especies sean estériles o produzcan crías tales, mientras que cuando se cruzan las variedades su fertilidad es vigorosa? Primero: creemos que las especies llegan a ser muy definidas, y que en ningún momento presentan caos intrincado de lazos variables e intermedios, porque las nuevas variedades se forman muy lentamente, pues la variación es un procedimiento lento, y la selección natural nada puede hacer hasta que ocurran diferencias o variaciones favorables individuales, y hasta tanto pueda ser mejor ocupado un lugar en la economía natural del país, por alguno o algunos de sus habitantes modificados. Estos nuevos lugares dependerán de lentos cambios de clima o de la inmigración accidental de nuevos habitantes, y probablemente en un grado todavía más importante, de que alguno de los habitantes antiguos se modifique poco a poco con las nuevas formas de este modo producidas y las antiguas, obrando por acción y reacción las unas sobre las otras, de modo que en cualquier región y en cualquier tiempo debemos solamente ver unas pocas especies que presenten pequeñas modificaciones de estructura en algún grado permanentes, y esto es lo que vemos. Segundo: las áreas que hoy son continuas deben haber existido en un período reciente como porciones aisladas, en las cuales muchas formas, especialmente las clases que se unen para cada nacimiento, pueden haberse hecho separadamente distintas como para figurar como especies representativas, en cuyo caso las variedades intermedias entre las varias especies representantes y su madre común, ~ Charles Darwin,

747:Frederick Cuvier and several of the older metaphysicians have compared instinct with habit. This comparison gives, I think, an accurate notion of the frame of mind under which an instinctive action is performed, but not necessarily of its origin. How unconsciously many habitual actions are performed, indeed not rarely in direct opposition to our conscious will! yet they may be modified by the will or reason. Habits easily become associated with other habits, with certain periods of time and states of the body. When once acquired, they often remain constant throughout life. Several other points of resemblance between instincts and habits could be pointed out. As in repeating a well-known song, so in instincts, one action follows another by a sort of rhythm; if a person be interrupted in a song, or in repeating anything by rote, he is generally forced to go back to recover the habitual train of thought: so P. Huber found it was with a caterpillar, which makes a very complicated hammock; for if he took a caterpillar which had completed its hammock up to, say, the sixth stage of construction, and put it into a hammock completed up only to the third stage, the caterpillar simply re-performed the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of construction. If, however, a caterpillar were taken out of a hammock made up, for instance, to the third stage, and were put into one finished up to the sixth stage, so that much of its work was already done for it, far from deriving any benefit from this, it was much embarrassed, and, in order to complete its hammock, seemed forced to start from the third stage, where it had left off, and thus tried to complete the already finished work. ~ Charles Darwin,

748:science reading list :::
1. and 2. The Voyage of the Beagle (1845) and The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin [tie
3. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) by Isaac Newton (1687)
4. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei (1632)
5. De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) by Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)
6. Physica (Physics) by Aristotle (circa 330 B.C.)
7. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1543)
8. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein (1916)
9. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
10. One Two Three . . . Infinity by George Gamow (1947)
11. The Double Helix by James D. Watson (1968)
12. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrodinger (1944)
13. The Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan (1973)
14. The Insect Societies by Edward O. Wilson (1971)
15. The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg (1977)
16. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
17. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould (1981)
18. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (1985)
19. The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1814)
20. The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard P Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands (1963)
21. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey et al. (1948)
22. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey (1983)
23. Under a Lucky Star by Roy Chapman Andrews (1943)
24. Micrographia by Robert Hooke (1665)
25. Gaia by James Lovelock (1979)
~ Editors of Discovery Magazine, Website,

749:Walter came from a strong line of self-motivated, determined folk: not grand, not high-society, but no-nonsense, family-minded, go-getters. His grandfather had been Samuel Smiles, who, in 1859, authored the original motivational book, titled Self-Help. It was a landmark work, and an instant bestseller, even outselling Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species when it was first launched.
Samuel’s book Self-Help also made plain the mantra that hard work and perseverance were the keys to personal progress. At a time in Victorian society where, as an Englishman, the world was your oyster if you had the get-up-and-go to make things happen, his book Self-Help struck a chord. It became the ultimate Victorian how-to guide, empowering the everyday person to reach for the sky. And at its heart it said that nobility is not a birthright but is defined by our actions. It laid bare the simple but unspoken secrets for living a meaningful, fulfilling life, and it defined a gentleman in terms of character not blood type.

Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities.
The poor man with a rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit.
To borrow St. Paul’s words, the former is as “having nothing, yet possessing all things,” while the other, though possessing all things, has nothing.
Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-respect, is still rich.

These were revolutionary words to Victorian, aristocratic, class-ridden England. To drive the point home (and no doubt prick a few hereditary aristocratic egos along the way), Samuel made the point again that being a gentleman is something that has to be earned: “There is no free pass to greatness. ~ Bear Grylls,

750:Darwin proposed that creatures like us who, by their nature, are riven by strong emotional conflicts, and who have also the intelligence to be aware of those conflicts, absolutely need to develop a morality because they need a priority system by which to resolve them. The need for morality is a corollary of conflicts plus intellect:

'Man, from the activity of his mental faculties, cannot avoid reflection. . . . Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well-developed, or anything like as well-developed as in man.' - Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

That (he said) is why we have within us the rudiments of such a priority system and why we have also an intense need to develop those rudiments. We try to shape our moralities in accordance with our deepest wishes so that we can in some degree harmonize our muddled and conflict-ridden emotional constitution, thus finding ourselves a way of life that suits it so far as is possible.

These systems are, therefore, something far deeper than mere social contracts made for convenience. They are not optional. They are a profound attempt -- though of course usually an unsuccessful one -- to shape our conflict-ridden life in a way that gives priority to the things that we care about most.

If this is right, then we are creatures whose evolved nature absolutely requires that we develop a morality. We need it in order to find our way in the world. The idea that we could live without any distinction between right and wrong is as strange as the idea that we -- being creatures subject to gravitation -- could live without any idea of up and down. That at least is Darwin’s idea and it seems to me to be one that deserves attention.

“Wickedness: An Open Debate,” The Philosopher’s Magazine, No. 14, Spring 2001 ~ Mary Midgley,

751:Para explicar o êxito de seus negócios, John Rockefeller costumava dizer que a natureza recompensa os mais aptos e castiga os inúteis. Mais de um século depois, muitos donos do mundo continuam acreditando que Charles Darwin escreveu seus livros para lhes prenunciar a glória.

Sobrevivência dos mais aptos? A aptidão mais útil para abrir caminho e sobreviver, o killing instinct, o instinto assassino, é uma virtude humana quando serve para que as grandes empresas façam a digestão das pequenas empresas e para que os países fortes devorem os países fracos, mas é prova de bestialidade quando um pobre-diabo sem trabalho sai a buscar comida com uma faca na mão.

Os enfermos da patologia antissocial, loucura e perigo de que cada pobre é portador, inspiram-se nos modelos de boa saúde do êxito social. O ladrão de pátio aprende o que sabe elevando o olhar rasteiro aos cumes: estuda o exemplo dos vitoriosos e, mal ou bem, faz o que pode para lhes copiar os méritos. Mas “os fodidos sempre serão fodidos”, como costumava dizer Dom Emílio Azcárraga, que foi amo e senhor da televisão mexicana.

As possibilidades de que um banqueiro que depena um banco desfrute em paz o produto de seus golpes são diretamente proporcionais às possibilidades de que um ladrão que rouba um banco vá para a prisão ou para o cemitério.

Quando um delinquente mata por dívida não paga, a execução se chama ajuste de contas; e se chama plano de ajuste a execução de um país endividado, quando a tecnocracia internacional resolve liquidá-lo. A corja financeira sequestra os países e os arrasa se não pagam o resgate.
Comparado com ela, qualquer bandidão é mais inofensivo do que Drácula à luz do sol. A economia mundial é a mais eficiente expressão do crime organizado.

Os organismos internacionais que controlam a moeda, o comércio e o crédito praticam o terrorismo contra os países pobres e contra os pobres de todos os países, com uma frieza profissional e uma impunidade que humilham o melhor dos lança-bombas. ~ Eduardo Galeano,

752:Certain shapes and patterns hover over different moments in time, haunting and inspiring the individuals living through those periods. The epic clash and subsequent resolution of the dialectic animated the first half of the nineteenth century; the Darwinian and social reform movements scattered web imagery through the second half of the century. The first few decades of the twentieth century found their ultimate expression in the exuberant anarchy of the explosion, while later decades lost themselves in the faceless regimen of the grid. You can see the last ten years or so as a return to those Victorian webs, though I suspect the image that has been burned into our retinas over the past decade is more prosaic: windows piled atop one another on a screen, or perhaps a mouse clicking on an icon. These shapes are shorthand for a moment in time, a way of evoking an era and its peculiar obsessions. For individuals living within these periods, the shapes are cognitive building blocks, tools for thought: Charles Darwin and George Eliot used the web as a way of understanding biological evolution and social struggles; a half century later, the futurists embraced the explosions of machine-gun fire, while Picasso used them to re-create the horrors of war in Guernica. The shapes are a way of interpreting the world, and while no shape completely represents its epoch, they are an undeniable component of the history of thinking. When I imagine the shape that will hover above the first half of the twenty-first century, what comes to mind is not the coiled embrace of the genome, or the etched latticework of the silicon chip. It is instead the pulsing red and green pixels of Mitch Resnick’s slime mold simulation, moving erratically across the screen at first, then slowly coalescing into larger forms. The shape of those clusters—with their lifelike irregularity, and their absent pacemakers—is the shape that will define the coming decades. I see them on the screen, growing and dividing, and I think: That way lies the future. ~ Steven Johnson,

753:With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage. ~ Charles Darwin,

754:I will here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre existing forms. Passing over allusions to the subject in the classical writers (Aristotle, in his "Physicae Auscultationes" (lib.2, cap.8, s.2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer's corn when threshed out of doors, applies the same argument to organisation; and adds (as translated by Mr. Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), "So what hinders the different parts (of the body) from having this merely accidental relation in nature? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident. And in like manner as to other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity; and whatsoever things were not thus constituted, perished and still perish." We here see the principle of natural selection shadowed forth, but how little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle, is shown by his remarks on the formation of the teeth.), the first author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of species, I need not here enter on details. ~ Charles Darwin,

755:...Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers... for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality... But I had gradually come by this time, i.e., 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.

...By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, (and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become), that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost uncomprehensible by us, that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can be hardly denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories.

But I was very unwilling to give up my belief... Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished.

And this is a damnable doctrine. ~ Charles Darwin,

756:The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree.I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have at all times overmastered other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was young, budding twigs; and this connection of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few have left living and modified descendants. From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these fallen branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only in a fossil state. As we here and there see a thin straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favoured and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus or Lepidosiren, which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications. ~ Charles Darwin,

757:Absorbingly articulate and infinitely intelligent . . . There is nothing pop about Kahneman's psychology, no formulaic story arc, no beating you over the head with an artificial, buzzword -encrusted Big Idea. It's just the wisdom that comes from five decades of honest, rigorous scientific work, delivered humbly yet brilliantly, in a way that will forever change the way you think about thinking:' -MARIA POPOVA, The Atlantic "Kahneman's primer adds to recent challenges to economic orthodoxies about rational actors and efficient markets; more than that, it's a lucid, mar- velously readable guide to spotting-and correcting-our biased misunder- standings of the world:' -Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The ramifications of Kahneman's work are wide, extending into education, business, marketing, politics ... and even happiness research. Call his field 'psychonomics: the hidden reasoning behind our choices. Thinking, Fast and Slow is essential reading for anyone with a mind:' -KYLE SMITH,NewYorkPost "A stellar accomplishment, a book for everyone who likes to think and wants to do it better." - E. JAMES LIEBERMAN ,Libraryfournal "Daniel Kahneman demonstrates forcefully in his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, how easy it is for humans to swerve away from rationality:' -CHRISTOPHER SHEA , The Washington Post "A tour de force .. . Kahneman's book is a must-read for anyone interested in either human behavior or investing. He clearly shows that while we like to think of ourselves as rational in our decision making, the truth is we are subject to many biases. At least being aware of them will give you a better chance of avoiding them, or at least making fewer of them:' -LARRY SWEDROE, CBS News "Brilliant .. . It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Daniel Kahne- man's contribution to the understanding of the way we think and choose. He stands among the giants, a weaver of the threads of Charles Darwin, Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud. Arguably the most important psycholo- gist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of hap pi- ness and well-being ... A magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused ~ Daniel Kahneman,

758:There is one point in particular I would like to single out and stress, namely, the notion of evolution. It is common to assume that one of the doctrines of the perennial philosophy... is the idea of involution-evolution. That is, the manifest world was created as a "fall" or "breaking away" from the Absolute (involution), but that all things are now returning to the Absolute (via evolution). In fact, the doctrine of progressive temporal return to Source (evolution) does not appear anywhere, according to scholars as Joseph Campbell, until the axial period (i.e. a mere two thousand years ago). And even then, the idea was somewhat convoluted and backwards. The doctrine of the yugas, for example, sees the world as proceeding through various stages of development, but the direction is backward: yesterday was the Golden Age, and time ever since has been a devolutionary slide downhill, resulting in the present-day Kali-Yuga. Indeed, this notion of a historical fall from Eden was ubiquitous during the axial period; the idea that we are, at this moment, actually evolving toward Spirit was simply not conceived in any sort of influential fashion.

But sometime during the modern era-it is almost impossible to pinpoint exactly-the idea of history as devolution (or a fall from God) was slowly replaced by the idea of history as evolution (or a growth towards God). We see it explicitly in Schelling (1775-1854); Hegel (1770-1831) propounded the doctrine with a genius rarely equaled; Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) made evolution a universal law, and his friend Charles Darwin (1809-1882) applied it to biology. We find it next appearing in Aurobindo (1872-1950), who gave perhaps its most accurate and profound spiritual context, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) who made it famous in the West.

But here is my point: we might say that the idea of evolution as return-to-Spirit is part of the perennial philosophy, but the idea itself, in any adequate form, is no more than a few hundred years old. It might be 'ancient' as timeless, but it is certainly not ancient as "old."...

This fundamental shift in the sense or form of the perennial philosophy-as represented in, say, Aurobindo, Hegel, Adi Da, Schelling, Teilhard de Chardin, Radhakrishnan, to name a few-I should like to call the "neoperennial philosophy." ~ Ken Wilber, The Eye Of Spirit,

759:I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did. On the other hand, novels which are works of the imagination, though not of a very high order, have been for years a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often bless all novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily–against which a law ought to be passed. A novel, according to my taste, does not come into the first class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love, and if a pretty woman all the better.

This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all the odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature. ~ Charles Darwin,

760:[Said during a debate when his opponent asserted that atheism and belief in evolution lead to Nazism:]

Atheism by itself is, of course, not a moral position or a political one of any kind; it simply is the refusal to believe in a supernatural dimension. For you to say of Nazism that it was the implementation of the work of Charles Darwin is a filthy slander, undeserving of you and an insult to this audience. Darwin’s thought was not taught in Germany; Darwinism was so derided in Germany along with every other form of unbelief that all the great modern atheists, Darwin, Einstein and Freud were alike despised by the National Socialist regime.

Now, just to take the most notorious of the 20th century totalitarianisms – the most finished example, the most perfected one, the most ruthless and refined one: that of National Socialism, the one that fortunately allowed the escape of all these great atheists, thinkers and many others, to the United States, a country of separation of church and state, that gave them welcome – if it’s an atheistic regime, then how come that in the first chapter of Mein Kampf, that Hitler says that he’s doing God’s work and executing God’s will in destroying the Jewish people? How come the fuhrer oath that every officer of the Party and the Army had to take, making Hitler into a minor god, begins, “I swear in the name of almighty God, my loyalty to the Fuhrer?” How come that on the belt buckle of every Nazi soldier it says Gott mit uns, God on our side? How come that the first treaty made by the Nationalist Socialist dictatorship, the very first is with the Vatican? It’s exchanging political control of Germany for Catholic control of German education. How come that the church has celebrated the birthday of the Fuhrer every year, on that day until democracy put an end to this filthy, quasi-religious, superstitious, barbarous, reactionary system?

Again, this is not a difference of emphasis between us. To suggest that there’s something fascistic about me and about my beliefs is something I won't hear said and you shouldn't believe. ~ Christopher Hitchens,

761:he importance and influence of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection can scarcely be exaggerated. A century after Darwin’s death, the great evolutionary biologist and historian of science, Ernst Mayr, wrote, ‘The worldview formed by any thinking person in the Western world after 1859, when On the Origin of Species was published, was by necessity quite different from a worldview formed prior to 1859… The intellectual revolution generated by Darwin went far beyond the confines of biology, causing the overthrow of some of the most basic beliefs of his age.’1 Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin’s biographers, contend, ‘Darwin is arguably the best known scientist in history. More than any modern thinker—even Freud or Marx—this affable old-world naturalist from the minor Shropshire gentry has transformed the way we see ourselves on the planet.’2 In the words of the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, ‘Almost no one is indifferent to Darwin, and no one should be. The Darwinian theory is a scientific theory, and a great one, but that is not all it is… Darwin’s dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs than many of its sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even to themselves.’3 Dennett goes on to add, ‘If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I’d give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law.’4 The editors of the Cambridge Companion to Darwin begin their introduction by stating, ‘Some scientific thinkers, while not themselves philosophers, make philosophers necessary. Charles Darwin is an obvious case. His conclusions about the history and diversity of life—including the evolutionary origin of humans—have seemed to bear on fundamental questions about being, knowledge, virtue and justice.’5 Among the fundamental questions raised by Darwin’s work, which are still being debated by philosophers (and others) are these: ‘Are we different in kind from other animals? Do our apparently unique capacities for language, reason and morality point to a divine spark within us, or to ancestral animal legacies still in evidence in our simian relatives? What forms of social life are we naturally disposed towards—competitive and selfish forms, or cooperative and altruistic ones?’6 As the editors of the volume point out, virtually the entire corpus of the foundational works of Western philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes to Kant to Hegel, has had to be re-examined in the light of Darwin’s work. Darwin continues to be read, discussed, interpreted, used, abused—and misused—to this day. As the philosopher and historian of science, Jean Gayon, puts it, ‘[T]his persistent positioning of new developments in relation to a single, pioneering figure is quite exceptional in the history of modern natural science. ~ Charles Darwin,

762:This century will be called Darwin's century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance--at the instigation of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin, and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts. His light has broken in on some of the clergy, and the greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit of one of the orthodox churches, Henry Ward Beecher, is a believer in the theories of Charles Darwin--a man of more genius than all the clergy of that entire church put together.

...The church teaches that man was created perfect, and that for six thousand years he has degenerated. Darwin demonstrated the falsity of this dogma. He shows that man has for thousands of ages steadily advanced; that the Garden of Eden is an ignorant myth; that the doctrine of original sin has no foundation in fact; that the atonement is an absurdity; that the serpent did not tempt, and that man did not 'fall.'

Charles Darwin destroyed the foundation of orthodox Christianity. There is nothing left but faith in what we know could not and did not happen. Religion and science are enemies. One is a superstition; the other is a fact. One rests upon the false, the other upon the true. One is the result of fear and faith, the other of investigation and reason. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,

763:76. David Hume – Treatise on Human Nature; Essays Moral and Political; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
77. Jean-Jacques Rousseau – On the Origin of Inequality; On the Political Economy; Emile – or, On Education, The Social Contract
78. Laurence Sterne – Tristram Shandy; A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
79. Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments; The Wealth of Nations
80. Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals; Critique of Practical Reason; The Science of Right; Critique of Judgment; Perpetual Peace
81. Edward Gibbon – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Autobiography
82. James Boswell – Journal; Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D.
83. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier – Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (Elements of Chemistry)
84. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison – Federalist Papers
85. Jeremy Bentham – Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Theory of Fictions
86. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Faust; Poetry and Truth
87. Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier – Analytical Theory of Heat
88. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – Phenomenology of Spirit; Philosophy of Right; Lectures on the Philosophy of History
89. William Wordsworth – Poems
90. Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Poems; Biographia Literaria
91. Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice; Emma
92. Carl von Clausewitz – On War
93. Stendhal – The Red and the Black; The Charterhouse of Parma; On Love
94. Lord Byron – Don Juan
95. Arthur Schopenhauer – Studies in Pessimism
96. Michael Faraday – Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental Researches in Electricity
97. Charles Lyell – Principles of Geology
98. Auguste Comte – The Positive Philosophy
99. Honoré de Balzac – Père Goriot; Eugenie Grandet
100. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Representative Men; Essays; Journal
101. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter
102. Alexis de Tocqueville – Democracy in America
103. John Stuart Mill – A System of Logic; On Liberty; Representative Government; Utilitarianism; The Subjection of Women; Autobiography
104. Charles Darwin – The Origin of Species; The Descent of Man; Autobiography
105. Charles Dickens – Pickwick Papers; David Copperfield; Hard Times
106. Claude Bernard – Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine
107. Henry David Thoreau – Civil Disobedience; Walden
108. Karl Marx – Capital; Communist Manifesto
109. George Eliot – Adam Bede; Middlemarch
110. Herman Melville – Moby-Dick; Billy Budd
111. Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers Karamazov
112. Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary; Three Stories
113. Henrik Ibsen – Plays
114. Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace; Anna Karenina; What is Art?; Twenty-Three Tales
115. Mark Twain – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Mysterious Stranger
116. William James – The Principles of Psychology; The Varieties of Religious Experience; Pragmatism; Essays in Radical Empiricism
117. Henry James – The American; The Ambassadors
118. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Beyond Good and Evil; The Genealogy of Morals;The Will to Power
119. Jules Henri Poincaré – Science and Hypothesis; Science and Method
120. Sigmund Freud – The Interpretation of Dreams; Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis; Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
121. George Bernard Shaw – Plays and Prefaces ~ Mortimer J Adler,

764:So here we find that the animals, and the plants, the vegetation, became living souls, and were created spiritually before they were naturally upon the earth. These are very significant expressions, and I am stressing them as evidence that contradicts and confutes the organic theory of evolution. . . .

Evolution teaches production and development of all things by chance, development of the smallest germ to a man created in the image of God, requiring several billions of years for that development. Moreover, this process would, if true, produce on other earths, passing through similar conditions, beings of a most hideous and dreadful nature imaginable. As they teach it has produced some very hideous beings on this earth.

There could be no intelligence in a Supreme Being who had each time an earth is formed to leave everything to chance hoping that in some great period of time from an amoeba, creatures would be developed, fit to possess an eternal spirit in his image.

I want you to get that! The idea, for us, sons and daughters of God, to be led astray by these theories of men into thinking that things began way back in that far distant time by some chance, suddenly appearing. Why, conditions today are far more favorable to spontaneous life than they were according to the teachings of science, millions of years ago, and have not men struggled and done everything that they knew how to do to find spontaneous life, and in searching for it they have always been defeated.

So I state, and have the evidence in this book. They have never found life coming only from antecedent life. God is the author of life, and that is one secret he has not revealed to man. . . .

We are transplanted beings. Adam was transplanted. I do not want to get a misunderstanding when I say that. He did not come here a resurrected being. He did not die on some other earth and then come here to die again, to be changed to mortality again, for the resurrected being cannot die. . . .

So, Adam was the first man upon the earth, according to the Lord's statement, and the first flesh also. That needs a little explanation.

Adam did not come to this earth until it was prepared for him. The animals were here. Plants were here. The Lord did not bring him to a desolate world, and then bring other creatures. It was all prepared for him, just according to the order that is written in our scriptures, and when it was all ready for Adam he was placed upon the earth.

Then what is meant by the "first flesh"? It is simple when you understand it. Adam was the first of all creatures to fall and become flesh, and flesh in this sense means mortality, and all through our scriptures the Lord speaks of this life as flesh, while we are here in the flesh, so Adam became the first flesh. There was no other mortal creature before him, and there was no mortal death until he brought it, and the scriptures tell you that. It is here written, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . .

Here the Lord says to Adam that through the fall came death, and other statements of that kind are given in these scriptures. . . .

Now, evolution leads men away from God. Men who have had faith in God, when they have become converted to that theory, forsake him. Charles Darwin was a religious man when he started out. I have told in this book something about what happened to him, and how his feelings changed, and what was beautiful to him in the beginning ceased to be beautiful to him thereafter.

[Seek Ye Earnestly, 277-283] ~ Joseph Fielding Smith,

IN CHAPTERS [5/5]

1 Integral Yoga
1 Cybernetics

1.01 - Newtonian and Bergsonian Time, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
by two men working at about the same time: Charles Darwin52
Chapter I
--
Darwin, Charles Darwin's son. Neither the connection of the
idea of the son with that of the father nor the choice of the

1.06 - Being Human and the Copernican Principle, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
Was it Charles Darwin, more than Nicolaus Coperni
cus, who knocked man from his pedestal? In the public
mind nowadays Charles Darwin is the giant who thought
14 Russell on Religion, p. 93.132

3-5 Full Circle, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Note well that the Sub-strata or ontogenetic stages shown here are human abstraction levels. They include--and, in fact, presuppose--the mental levels of the highest animal Periods. Human Period 1, for instance, is shown to have a single Sub-stratum; but that is in addition to all of the highest animals' Sub-strata. This basic and strategic truth is recognized by all the great religions, but was deplorably ignored by Charles Darwin and most biologists since Darwin. It is officially ignored by Dialectical Materialists, who base their claim to being "scientific" on this and similar aberrations of the one-field specialists. In practice, however, human abstraction ceilings are carefully observed and utilized by Dialectical Materialists, as shown in their strategically graded levels of communication: agitation, propaganda, officia1 theory (for intellectuals), and secret theory (for high Party leaders). It is by means of agitation, on the lowest level of human abstraction, that they incite what they call the masses against courageous, conscientious testers of intelligence. (See Chapters II and V.)
Turning back now to Figure IV-l, the second Period has two inter-locked braces: the lower one includes most first Period tools and foods, though usually somewhat modified; and the upper brace adds new ones: some seeds are planted and grown instead of just eaten; some small animals--such as pigs, sheep, fowls--are tended and bred. New kinds of equipment for this agriculture are represented by the upper brace. The society consists of a few nomadic villages, and two social Strata.

Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
of analytical geometry and analytic proofs. Charles Darwin (1855, 1872, 1877) co-ordinated
Infancy to Enlightenment, Part III: Postconventional Consciousness

The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
years 1794-95' 11 that is, fifteen years before Charles Darwin was born.
The second great public controversy between evolutionists and anti-

WORDNET

--- Overview of noun charles_darwin

The noun charles darwin has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)

1. Darwin, Charles Darwin, Charles Robert Darwin ::: (English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882))

--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun charles_darwin

1 sense of charles darwin

Sense 1
Darwin, Charles Darwin, Charles Robert Darwin
INSTANCE OF=> naturalist, natural scientist
=> biologist, life scientist
=> scientist
=> person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
=> organism, being
=> living thing, animate thing
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> physical entity
=> entity

--- Hyponyms of noun charles_darwin

--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun charles_darwin

1 sense of charles darwin

Sense 1
Darwin, Charles Darwin, Charles Robert Darwin
INSTANCE OF=> naturalist, natural scientist

--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun charles_darwin

1 sense of charles darwin

Sense 1
Darwin, Charles Darwin, Charles Robert Darwin
-> naturalist, natural scientist
HAS INSTANCE=> Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz
HAS INSTANCE=> Andrews, Roy Chapman Andrews
HAS INSTANCE=> Cuvier, Georges Cuvier, Baron Georges Cuvier, Georges Leopold Chretien Frederic Dagobert Cuvier
HAS INSTANCE=> Darwin, Charles Darwin, Charles Robert Darwin
HAS INSTANCE=> Gesner, Konrad von Gesner
HAS INSTANCE=> Hudson, W. H. Hudson, William Henry Hudson
HAS INSTANCE=> Humboldt, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, Baron Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt
HAS INSTANCE=> Lamarck, Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, Chevalier de Lamarck
HAS INSTANCE=> Muir, John Muir
HAS INSTANCE=> Oken, Lorenz Oken, Okenfuss, Lorenz Okenfuss
HAS INSTANCE=> Steller, Georg Wilhelm Steller
HAS INSTANCE=> Swammerdam, Jan Swammerdam
HAS INSTANCE=> Wallace, Alfred Russel Wallace

--- Grep of noun charles_darwin
charles darwin

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Dharmapedia - Keshav_Baliram_Hedgewar

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4-Methylthioamphetamine

Chittilamchery

I Am Here

I Am Here!

Ilamchetchenni

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Moustafa Buihamghet

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