Charles Darwin Quotes About Science

Quotes about: Science

• 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

  Positive, Confidence, Ignorance

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.33, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Nature, Science

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.859, Delphi Classics

• Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Confidence, Atheist

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.6343, Delphi Classics

• 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

  Inspirational, Nature, Science

  'The Descent of Man' (1871) closing words

• A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Cat, Science

  Quoted in John D Barrow Pie in the Sky, Counting, Thinking and Being (1992).

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

  Charles Darwin

  Teamwork, Creativity, Knowledge

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.23, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• 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

  Science, Law, Theory Of Evolution

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.21, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• 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

  Giving Up, Science, Mind

  "Dow 36,000". Book by James K. Glassman, Kevin A. Hassett, www.cnn.com. September 14, 1999.

• 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

  Believe, Knowledge, Science

  Charles Darwin (1902). “Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters”, p.267, Library of Alexandria

• I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.

  Charles Darwin

  Motivational, Science, Theory Of Evolution

  "Got a problem? Our Evolutionary Agony Aunt can help" by Ian Sample, www.theguardian.com. December 2, 2009.

• Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Long, Doe

  Charles Darwin (2010). “Natural Selection”, p.202, Bibliolis Books

• What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Nature, Book

  Letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 July 1856

• 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

  Distance, Believe, Eye

  "The Collapse of Evolution". Book by Scott Huse, p. 73, 1996.

• We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.

  Charles Darwin

  Struggle, Science, Survival

  On the Origin of Species ch. 3 (1859) See Malthus 2

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

  Charles Darwin

  Country, Science, Journey

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.862, Delphi Classics

• 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

  Science, Survival, Would Be

  Charles Darwin (1869). “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.92

• Free will is to mind what chance is to matter.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Mind, Matter

  Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn (1996). “On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection”, p.78, Hackett Publishing

• 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

  Believe, Science, Keys

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.10203, Delphi Classics

• ...all nature is perverse & will not do as I wish it.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Wish

  Charles Darwin, Frederick Burkhardt, Sydney Smith (1985). “The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: 1851-1855”, p.326, Cambridge University Press

• A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, - a mere heart of stone.

  Charles Darwin

  Heart, Science, Men

  Charles Darwin, R. C. Stauffer (1987). “Charles Darwin's Natural Selection: Being the Second Part of His Big Species Book Written from 1856 to 1858”, p.279, Cambridge University Press

• 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

  Science, Animal, Men

  Charles Darwin (1871). “The Descent of man”, p.14

• 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

  Swimming, Science, Animal

  Charles Darwin (2016). “Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution”, p.453, VM eBooks

• 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

  Taken, Science, Diversity

  Charles Darwin (2003). “On the Origin of Species”, p.457, Broadview Press

• 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

  Regret, Science, Men

  Charles Darwin (2010). “Evolutionary Writings: including the Autobiographies”, p.525, OUP Oxford

• 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

  Science, Tree, Progress

  Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn (1996). “On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection”, p.54, Hackett Publishing

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