Erasmus Darwin Quotes

38 Sourced Quotes

I much condole with you on your late loss...pains and diseases of the mind are only cured by Forgetfulness;—Reason but skins the wound, which is perpetually liable to fester again.

Erasmus Darwin
Opium is the only drug to be rely'd on—all the boasted nostrums only take up time, and as the disease [is] often of short duration, or of small quantity, they have gain'd credit which they do not deserve.

Erasmus Darwin
On vermil beds in Idria's mighty caves The living silver rolls its ponderous waves.

Erasmus Darwin
There are some modern practitioners, who declaim against medical theory in general, not considering that to think is to theorize; and that no one can direct a method of cure to a person labouring under disease, without thinking, that is, without theorizing; and happy therefore is the patient, whose physician possesses the best theory.

Erasmus Darwin
In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling.
After reading The Origin of Species

Erasmus Darwin
Roll on, ye Stars! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;
Near and more near your beamy cars approach,
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; —
Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall,
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!
— Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.

Erasmus Darwin
In earth, sea, air, around, below, above, Life's subtle woof in Nature's loom is wove, Points glued to points in living line extends, Touch'd by some goad approach the bending ends.

Erasmus Darwin
It is often hazardous to marry an heiress, as she is not unfrequently the last of a diseased family.

Erasmus Darwin
Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new animal, but it is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent; since a part of the embryon-animal is, or was, a part of the parent; and therefore in strict language it cannot be said to be entirely new at the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of the parent-system. (1794)

Erasmus Darwin
And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.

Erasmus Darwin
Life is a forced state! I am surprized that we live, rather than that our friends die.

Erasmus Darwin
With vast convolutions Draco holds Th' ecliptic axis in his scaly folds. O'er half the skies his neck enormous rears, And with immense meanders parts the Bears.

Erasmus Darwin
The great CREATOR of all things has infinitely diversified the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on the features of nature, that demonstrates to us, that the whole is one family of one parent.

Erasmus Darwin
On being asked whether his stammering caused him inconvenience:
No, Sir, because I have time to think before I speak, and don't ask impertinent questions.

Erasmus Darwin
We hence acquire this sublime and interesting idea; that all the calcareous mountains in the world, and all the strata of clay, coal, marl, sand, and iron, which are incumbent on them, are MONUMENTS OF THE PAST FELICITY OF ORGANIZED NATURE!

Erasmus Darwin
Would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!

Erasmus Darwin
By firm immutable immortal laws
Impress'd on Nature by the GREAT FIRST CAUSE,
Say, MUSE! how rose from elemental strife
Organic forms, and kindled into life;
How Love and Sympathy with potent charm
Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm;
Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains,
And bind Society in golden chains.

Erasmus Darwin
Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!' and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!

Erasmus Darwin
From the sexual, or amatorial, generation of plants new varieties, or improvements, are frequently obtained; as many of the young plants from seeds are dissimilar to the parent, and some of them superior to the parent in the qualities we wish to possess...Sexual reproduction is the chef d'oeuvre, the master-piece of nature.

Erasmus Darwin
[Retirement] is a dangerous experiment, and generally ends in either drunkenness or hypochrondriacism.

Erasmus Darwin
Dull atheist, could a giddy dance Of atoms lawlessly hurl'd Construct so wonderful, so wise, So harmonised a world?

Erasmus Darwin
For if we may compare infinities, it would seem to require a greater infinity of power to cause the causes of effects, than to cause the effects themselves. This idea is analogous to the improving excellence observable in every part of the creation; such as in the progressive increase of the solid or habitable parts of the earth from water; and in the progressive increase of the wisdom and happiness of its inhabitants; and is consonant to the idea of our present situation being a state of probation, which by our exertion we may improve, and are consequently responsible for our actions.

Erasmus Darwin
Or mark with shining letters Kunckel's name In the pale phosphor's self-consuming flame.

Erasmus Darwin
Hence with diffusive salt old Ocean steeps His emerald shallows, and his sapphire deeps. Oft in wide lakes, around their warmer brim In hollow pyramids the crystals swim; Or, fused by earth-born fires, in cubic blocks Shoot their white forms, and harden into rocks.

Erasmus Darwin
The mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first.

Erasmus Darwin