Charles Darwin Quotes - Page 8

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

Charles Darwin

Opinion, Murder, Origin Of Species

Charles Darwin, James T. Costa (2009). “The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species”, p.6, Harvard University Press

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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

Thinking, Competition, Suffering

Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.3831, Delphi Classics

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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

Hope, Hard Work, Science

Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.3038, Delphi Classics

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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

Opportunity, Variation, World

Charles Darwin, Paul H. Barrett, Peter Gautrey (1989). “The Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 15: On the Origin of Species, 1859”, p.62, NYU Press

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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

Struggle, Bird, Singing

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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

Pride, Destiny, Men

Charles Darwin (2015). “The Descent of Man: Human Sexuality”, p.548, 谷月社

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Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embellishment.

Charles Darwin

Views, Plant, Form

Philip Parker King, Sir Francis Darwin, Robert Fitzroy, Charles Darwin (1839). “Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle: Between the Years 1826 and 1836 ...”, p.604

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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

Men, Views, Brain

Charles Darwin (1884). “Darwinism Stated by Darwin Himself: Characteristic Passages from the Writings of Charles Darwin”

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[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

Animal, Men, Race

Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Darwin, Paul H. Barrett, R. B. Freeman (1990). “The Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 23: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”, p.275, NYU Press

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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

Different, Evolution, Language

Charles Darwin (2016). “The Descent of Man: the Evolution”, p.86, VM eBooks

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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

Eye, Voice, People

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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

Sacrifice, Animal, Men

"The Descent of Man: Human Sexuality".

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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

Views, Long, Special

Charles Darwin (2012). “On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle”, p.254, Graphic Arts Books

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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

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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

Animal, Hands, Order

Charles Darwin (1952). “The origin of species by means of natural selection: The descent of man and selection in relation to sex”

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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

Dog, Believe, Science

The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II C. Darwin to Asa Gray May 22nd [1860] (p. 105)

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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

Dog, Sacrifice, Order

The Descent of Man ch. 21 (1871)

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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

Children, Pain, Animal

Charles Darwin (2007). “The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition”, p.107, Penguin

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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

Dog, Father, Science

Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin (1958). “Autobiography and Selected Letters”, p.9, Courier Corporation

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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

Men, Rewards, Belief

Charles Darwin (2003). “On the Origin of Species”, p.434, Broadview Press

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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

Mean, Views, Looks

"On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle".

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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

Men, Comfort, Found

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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

Men, Law, Mind

Charles Darwin (1883). “The Descent of Man and Seletion in Relation to Sex”, p.613, Рипол Классик

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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

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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

Years, Practice, Tunes

Charles Darwin (2016). “On the Origin of Species”, p.158, Zillmann Publishing

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Born: February 12, 1809
Died: April 19, 1882
Occupation: Naturalist
Cite this Page: Citation

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