Charles Darwin Quotes

369 Sourced Quotes

A naturalist's life would be a happy one if he had only to observe, and never to write.

Charles Darwin
Nothing is so vexatious to me, as so constantly finding myself drawing different conclusions from better judges than myself, from the same facts.

Charles Darwin
In regard to the amount of difference between the races, we must make some allowance for our nice powers of discrimination gained by a long habit of observing ourselves.

Charles Darwin
There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator 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
The force of impressions generally depends on preconceived ideas.

Charles Darwin
In scientific investigations, it is permitted to invent any hypothesis and, if it explains various large and independent classes of facts, it rises to the ranks of a well-grounded theory.

Charles Darwin
Widely ranging species, abounding in individuals, which have already triumphed over many competitors in their own widely extended homes will have the best chance of seizing on new places, when they spread into new countries.

Charles Darwin
Pray do not suppose that I expect to convert or pervert you; if I could stagger you in ever so slight a degree I should be satisfied; nor fear to annoy me by severe criticisms, for I have had some hearty kicks from some of my best friends.

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

Charles Darwin
What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern?

Charles Darwin
It is a truly wonderful fact - the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity - that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group.

Charles Darwin
Not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity.

Charles Darwin
The theory which I would offer, is simply, that as the land with the attached reefs subsides very gradually from the action of subterranean causes, the coral-building polypi soon raise again their solid masses to the level of the water: but not so with the land; each inch lost is irreclaimably gone; as the whole gradually sinks, the water gains foot by foot on the shore, till the last and highest peak is finally submerged.

Charles Darwin
An unverified hypothesis is of little or not value; but if any one should hereafter be led to make observations by which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall have done good service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can be thus connected together and rendered intelligible.

Charles Darwin
I suspect the first expedition I take, clinometer and hammer in hand, will send me back very little wiser and a good deal more puzzled than when I started. As yet I have only indulged in hypotheses, but they are such powerful ones that I suppose, if they were put into action for but one day, the world would come to an end.

Charles Darwin
In the survival of favoured individuals and races, during the constantly-recurring struggle for existence, we see a powerful and ever-acting form of selection.

Charles Darwin
I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me.

Charles Darwin
I value praise for accurate observation far higher than for any other quality.

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
As the sense of smell is so intimately connected with that of taste, it is not surprising that an excessively bad odour should excite wretching or vomitting in some persons.

Charles Darwin
Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist.

Charles Darwin
I could not employ my life better than in adding a little to Natural Science. This I have done to the best of my abilities, and critics may say what they like, but they cannot destroy this conviction.

Charles Darwin
I was very fond of collecting eggs, but I never took more than a single egg out of a bird's nest, except on one single occasion, when I took all, not for their value, but from a sort of bravado.

Charles Darwin
Extinction and natural selection go hand in hand.

Charles Darwin
A novel according to my taste, does not come into the moderately good class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love - and if a pretty woman, all the better.

Charles Darwin
The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of even a million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.

Charles Darwin
As for myself, I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily following, and devoting my life to Science. I feel no remorse from having committed any great sin, but have often and often regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow creatures.

Charles Darwin
Your question what would convince me of Design is a poser. If I saw an angel come down to teach us good, and I was convinced from others seeing him that I was not mad, I should believe in design.

Charles Darwin
Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather.

Charles Darwin
We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.

Charles Darwin