"I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness."
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Quote collection
Charles Darwin quotes (page 16 of 20)
395 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
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"The Times is getting more detestable (but that is too weak word) than ever."
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"Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles."
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"I look at the natural geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines."
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"A surprising number [of novels] have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily-against which a law ought to be passed."
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"I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me."
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"Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory."
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"And hail their queen, fair regent of the night."
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"Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."
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"Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have."
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"But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand."
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"I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions."
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"A cell is a complex structure, with its investing membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus."
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"I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance Huxley"
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"The normal food of man is vegetable."
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"I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work in Natural Selection, which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being."
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"To my deep mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.""
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"It is certain that there may be extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small absolute mass of nervous matter: thus the wonderfully diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants are notorious, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so large as the quarter of a small pin's head. Under this point of view, the brain of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of a man."
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"It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter."
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