Charles Darwin

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed 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.

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection.

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

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

We are not here concerned with the question of the origin of the soul, but with the first appearance of the faculty of conscience.

The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.

I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than many men.

As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him.

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.

I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work.

The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those who can manage change.

From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.

There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties.

One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.