"It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine."
Read quote
8 likes
Quote collection
Charles Darwin quotes (page 10 of 20)
395 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"If every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty."
Read quote
8 likes
"I ought, or I ought not, constitute the whole of morality."
Read quote
8 likes
"Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future."
Read quote
8 likes
"How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children."
Read quote
8 likes
"We are optimists, until we are not."
Read quote
8 likes
"I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character."
Read quote
8 likes
"When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."
Read quote
8 likes
"My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain that alone on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine would not, I suppose, have thus suffered, and if I had to live my life over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use."
Read quote
8 likes
"One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."
Read quote
8 likes
"But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice."
Read quote
8 likes
"Nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in a distant country."
Read quote
8 likes
"So in regard to mental qualities, their transmission is manifest in our dogs, horses and other domestic animals. Besides special tastes and habits, general intelligence, courage, bad and good tempers. etc., are certainly transmitted."
Read quote
8 likes
"It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind."
Read quote
8 likes
"We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World."
Read quote
8 likes
"It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the plan of creation or unity of design, etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact."
Read quote
8 likes
"With highly civilised nations continued progress depends in a subordinate degree on natural selection; for such nations do not supplant and exterminate one another as do savage tribes."
Read quote
8 likes
"Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embellishment."
Read quote
8 likes
"The lower animals, on the other hand, must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be rendered stronger, or acquire more effective teeth or claws, in order to defend themselves from new enemies; or they must be reduced in size so as to escape detection and danger. When they migrate into a colder climate they must become clothed with thicker fur, or have their constitutions altered. If they fail to be thus modified, they will cease to exist."
Read quote
8 likes
"I often had to run very quickly to be on time, and from being a fleet runner was generally successful; but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided."
Read quote
8 likes