Charles Darwin Quotes

369 Sourced Quotes

If everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty.

Charles Darwin
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
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
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
What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horridly cruel works of nature!

Charles Darwin
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
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
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
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
Origin of man now proved.—Metaphysics must flourish.—He who understands baboon [will] would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.

Charles Darwin
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
What a splendid pursuit Natural History would be if it was all observing and no writing!

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

Charles Darwin
Man differs from woman in size, bodily strength, hairyness, &c., as well as in mind, in the same manner as do the two sexes of many mammals.

Charles Darwin
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
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
The passion for collecting which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters or brothers ever had this taste.

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

Charles Darwin
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
M. Perrier found that their exposure to the dry air of a room for only a single night was fatal to them. On the other hand he kept several large worms alive for nearly four months, completely submerged in water.

Charles Darwin