Quotes from Charles Darwin

The natural history of this archipelago is very remarkable; it seems to be a little world within itself.

Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived.

Travelling ought also to teach him distrust; but at the same time he will discover, how many trully goodnatured people there are.

Nevertheless many a civilized man, or even boy, who never before risked his life for another, but full of courage and sympathy, has disregarded the instinct of self-preservation, and plunged at once into a torrent to save a drowning man, though a stranger. Such actions as the above appear to be the simple result of the greater strength of the social or maternal instincts rather than that of any other instinct or motive.

As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

A un mono americano, un ateles, que se embriagó con coñac , nunca más se le pudo hacer que lo volviese a probar, en lo que obraba con mayor cordura que muchos hombres El Origen del Hombre

I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect (compared to animals or other living beings), only in zeal and hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference

There is nothing like geology; the pleasure of the first day's partridge shooting or first day's hunting cannot be compared to finding a fine group of fossil bones, which tell their story of former times with almost a living tongue. Charles Darwin, letter to his sister Catherine, 1834

Why is thought being a secretion of brain, more wonderful than gravity a property of matter? It is our arrogance, our admiration of ourselves.

The ignoring of all transmitted mental qualities will, as it seems to me, be hereafter judged as a most serious blemish in the works of Mr. Mill.

But Geology carries the day: it is like the pleasure of gambling, speculating, on first arriving, what the rocks may be; I often mentally cry out 3 to 1 Tertiary against primitive; but the latter have hitherto won all the bets.

But then 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. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

he doubted whether any one with my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage. But I think he was afterwards well satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely.

If any man wants to gain a good opinion of his fellow men, he ought to do what I am doing: pester them with letters.

The number of living creatures of all orders whose existence intimately depends on kelp is wonderful. A great volume might be written describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of seaweed…. I can only compare these great aquatic forests…with terrestrial ones in the intertropical regions. Yet, if in any other country a forest was destroyed, I do not believe so many species of animals would perish as would here, from the destruction of kelp

Celui qui n'évolue pas disparaît.

It is very true what you say about the higher races of men, when high enough, replacing and clearing off the lower races. In 500 years how the Anglo-Saxon race will have spread and exterminated whole nations; and in consequence how much the Human race, viewed as a unit, will have risen in rank.

Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know littler, and not those who know much, who so positively assertive that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

Ngu d?t má»›i là th? hay sinh ra sá»± tá»± ph? ch? không ph?i là tri th?c.

En realidad, dudo de que la compasión sea una cualidad natural o innata.

I remember a funny dinner at my brother's, where, amongst a few others, were Babbage and Lyell, both of whom liked to talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing during the whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner Babbage, in his grimmest manner, thanked Carlyle for his very interesting lecture on silence.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work