Quotes · Skopia

19 quotes

I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as 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.

Charles Darwin

1860

★ 2.0

Letter

I cannot look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent design, or indeed of design of any kind, in the details.

Charles Darwin

1870

★ 2.0

Scientific literature

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dread enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs--as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

Charles Darwin

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex · 1871

★ 2.1

Letter

To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing a new truth or fact.

Charles Darwin

1879

★ 2.1

Letter

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.

Charles Darwin

1881

★ 3.7

Scientific literature

Both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact—that mystery of mysteries—the first appearance of new beings on this earth.

Charles Darwin

The Voyage of the Beagle · 1835

★ 3.8

Personal journal

Animals whom we have made our slaves we do not like to consider our equals.

Charles Darwin

1838

★ 3.8

Letter

What a book a Devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low, & horridly cruel works of nature!

Charles Darwin

1856

★ 3.8

Scientific literature

The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded.

Charles Darwin

The Descent of Man · 1871

★ 3.8

Scientific literature

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.

Charles Darwin

The Descent of Man · 1871

★ 3.8

Scientific literature

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. But I can find out no such case.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1859

★ 3.9

Scientific literature

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.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1859

★ 3.9

Scientific literature

The shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1859

★ 4.9

Scientific literature

Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1859

★ 5.5

Scientific literature

When the views advanced by me in this volume, and by Mr. Wallace, or when analogous views on the origin of species are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1879

★ 5.5

Scientific literature

We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.

Charles Darwin

The Descent of Man · 1871

★ 6.3

Scientific literature

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

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of the Species · 1859

★ 7.9

Scientific literature

Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

Charles Darwin

The Descent of Man · 1871

★ 8.5

Scientific literature

There is grandeur in this view of life...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.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1859

★ 9.8

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