Species Quotes

• Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he's destroying is this God he's worshipping.

  Hubert Reeves

  God, Nature, Men

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• The world was not made for any one species.

  Daniel Quinn

  World, Made

  Daniel Quinn (2009). “Ishmael: A Novel”, p.145, Bantam

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• If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

  George Carlin

  Funny, Humor, Perspective

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• 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

  Intellectual, Able, Changing Environment

  46 Copy quote

• Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved

  Charles Darwin

  Beautiful, Origin Of Life, Theory Of Evolution

  On the Origin of Species ch. 14 (1859)

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• Biologically the species is the accumulation of the experiments of all its successful individuals since the beginning.

  H. G. Wells

  Successful, Atheism, Literature

  H. G. Wells (2016). “A Modern Utopia”, p.68, H. G. Wells

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  The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.

  Charles Darwin

  Love, Life, Nature

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.25, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• In a world where so much that is wild and free has been lost to us, we must leave these beautiful animals free to swim as they will and must. They do us no harm and wish us none and we should let them alone.

  Ric O'Barry

  Beauty, Beautiful, Nature

  66 Copy quote

• 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

  Beautiful, Simple, Cycling

  On the Origin of Species ch. 14 (1859)

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  A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Life, Encouraging

  Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin (1958). “Autobiography and Selected Letters”, p.145, Courier Corporation

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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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• Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species.

  Joseph Addison

  World, Mankind, Spectators

  1711 In The Spectator, no.1,1Mar.

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• Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Love, Sarcastic, Depressing

  81 Copy quote

• The Endangered Species Act is the strongest and most effective tool we have to repair the environmental harm that is causing a species to decline.

  Norm Dicks

  Environmental, Tools, Decline

  14 Copy quote

• What is a fish without a river? What is a bird without a tree to nest in? What is an Endangered Species Act without any enforcement mechanism to ensure their habitat is protected? It is nothing.

  Jay Inslee

  Rivers, Bird, Tree

  "House Approves Revised Endangered Species Act". "Morning Edition", www.npr.org. September 30, 2005.

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• For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Women, Science, Males

  "The Female of the Species" st. 1 (1911)

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• 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

  Strong, Struggle, Principles

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.9, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• 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

  Differences, Chance, Origin Of Species

  Charles Darwin (2010). “Evolutionary Writings: including the Autobiographies”, p.286, OUP Oxford

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• Well, I think breathing life into the Endangered Species Act, taking those wolves back into Yellowstone, restoring the salmon in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Thinking, Breathing, Rivers

  64 Copy quote

• The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Thinking

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• 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

  Struggle, Variation, Owing

  On the Origin of Species ch. 3 (1859)

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• Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.

  Charles Darwin

  Form, Fine, Origin Of Species

  Charles Darwin (2010). “The Origin of Species: A Variorum Text”, p.321, University of Pennsylvania Press

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• We wonder why we have got the Freemen or the militants. We wonder why we have got unrest in this country. It is because our government, in fact, has got out of hand and out of line, with the Endangered Species Act.

  Don Young

  Country, Government, Hands

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  God, Garden, Thinking

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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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