Charles Darwin

We are all connected; to each other, biologically, to the earth, chemically, to the rest of the universe, atomically.

I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.

We are not here concerned with the question of the origin of the higher animals, but merely with that of the origin of man.

The strongest argument for the existence of God, as it seems to me, is the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity.

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

I have no doubt that the most important agent in the production of new species has been natural selection.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much more prudent than many a man.

It is a truly wonderful fact—the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity—that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in groups subordinate to groups, in the manner which we everywhere behold—namely, varieties of the same species most closely related together, species of the same genus less closely and unequally related together, forming sections and sub-genera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, and so on.

The imagination is one of the highest prerogatives of man.

I have no great faith in the power of books to change men's minds.

The difference between the most highly developed mind of a man and the lowest of a gorilla or an orangutan is one of degree and not of kind.

The study of the natural sciences is an excellent training for the mind.

The more we learn of the world, the more we are impressed with the infinite wisdom which created it.

The moral sense is fundamentally identical with the social instincts.

I have always maintained that, in the long run, truth will prevail.

Man is a social animal, and it is in society that he develops his highest faculties.

The very existence of a moral sense in man is a strong argument for his animal origin.

The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced of the necessity of a good education.

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.