Alfred Russel Wallace Quotes

• Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Truth, World, Born

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1991). “Alfred Russel Wallace: An Anthology of His Shorter Writings”, Oxford University Press, USA

  23 Copy quote

• Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Matter, Form, Modification

  59 Copy quote

• In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Animal, Details, Adaptation

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1853). “A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro: With an Account of the Native Tribes, and Observations on the Climate, Geology, and Natural History of the Amazon Valley”, p.83, London : Reeve and Company

  26 Copy quote

• Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Space, Existence, Time And Space

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1875). “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of Essays”, p.5

  9 Copy quote

• In one of my latest conversations with Darwin he expressed himself very gloomily on the future of humanity, on the ground that in our modern civilization natural selection had no play, and the fittest did not survive. Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most intelligent, and it is notorious that our population is more largely renewed in each generation from the lower than from the middle and upper classes.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Mean, Intelligent, Race

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1991). “Alfred Russel Wallace: An Anthology of His Shorter Writings”, Oxford University Press, USA

  26 Copy quote

• Why do some die and some live? The answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies, the strongest, swiftest, or the most cunning; from famine, the best hunters or those with the best digestion; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain-that is, the fittest would survive.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Science, Race, Self

  23 Copy quote

• In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Space, Life And Death, Solitude

  Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Berry (2003). “Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology”, p.225, Verso

  20 Copy quote

• The white men in our colonies are too frequently the savages

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Men, White Man, Savages

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1900). “Studies Scientific & Social”

  18 Copy quote

• I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Thankfulness, I Am Thankful, Admire

  Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Berry (2003). “Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology”, p.225, Verso

  21 Copy quote

• I think I have fairly heard and fairly weighed the evidence on both sides, and I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths... I can see much to admire in all religions... But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Thinking, Soul, Suffering

  Alfred Russel Wallace's letter to a relative, 1861.

  24 Copy quote

• There is a tendency in nature to the continued progression of certain classes of varieties further and further from the original type.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Class, Progression, Certain

  Alfred Russel Wallace (2016). “Bad Times and On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type”, p.93, Library of Alexandria

  15 Copy quote

• I hold with Henry George, that at the back of every great social evil will be found a great political wrong

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Evil, Political, Social

  24 Copy quote

• If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  People, Age, Looks

  Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Berry (2003). “Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology”, p.147, Verso

  9 Copy quote

• Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Race, Religion, Emigration

  27 Copy quote

• There might have been a hundred or a thousand life-bearing planets, had the course of evolution of the universe been a little different, or there might have been none at all. They would probably add, that, as life and man have been produced, that shows that their production was possible; and therefore, if not now then at some other time, if not here then in some other planet of some other sun, we should be sure to have come into existence; or if not precisely the same as we are, then something a little better or a little worse.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Believe, Men, Body

  19 Copy quote

• To say that mind is a product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use words to which we can attach no clear conception

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Mind, Use, Function

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1875). “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of Essays”, p.365

  18 Copy quote

• In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Knowledge, Science, Acceptance

  Alfred Russel Wallace (2016). “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of Essays”, p.42, Library of Alexandria

  17 Copy quote

• To the mass of mankind religion of some kind is a necessity

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Religion, Kind, Mass

  Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Berry (2003). “Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology”, p.225, Verso

  8 Copy quote

• On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associated with a spiritual body or soul, both of which are developed in and by means of a material organism

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Spiritual, Mean, Men

  Alfred Russel Wallace (2004). “Writings on evolution, 1843-1912”, Thoemmes Pr

  11 Copy quote

• Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly. To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look for one of those miracles which do not occur.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Miracle, Challenges, Looks

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1991). “Alfred Russel Wallace: An Anthology of His Shorter Writings”, Oxford University Press, USA

  12 Copy quote

• There is, I conceive, no contradiction in believing that mind is at once the cause of matter and of the development of individualised human minds through the agency of matter

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Believe, Agency, Mind

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1991). “Alfred Russel Wallace: An Anthology of His Shorter Writings”, Oxford University Press, USA

  9 Copy quote

• As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Law, Tree, Ignorant

  Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Berry (2003). “Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology”, p.85, Verso

  8 Copy quote

• Mars, therefore, is not only uninhabited by intelligent beings such as Mr. Lowell postulates, but is absolutely uninhabitable.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Intelligent, Mars

  Alfred Russel Wallace (1907). “Is Mars Habitable? A Critical Examination of Professor Percival Lowell's Book "Mars and its Canals," with an Alternative Explanation”, p.81, Library of Alexandria

  15 Copy quote

• But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Animal, Principles, Looks

  Alfred Russel Wallace (2016). “Travels on the Amazon”, p.61, Library of Alexandria

  9 Copy quote

• I am decidedly of the opinion that in very many instances we can trace such a necessary connexion, especially among birds, and often with more complete success than in the case which I have here attempted to explain.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Success, Bird, Opinion

  Alfred Russel Wallace (2013). “On the Organic Law of Change”, p.263, Harvard University Press

  15 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Charles Darwin

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Charles Lyell

Thomas Malthus

Henry Walter Bates

Erasmus Darwin

Thomas Huxley

Carl Linnaeus