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This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection and would be left a fluctuating element.

Charles Darwin

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Charles Darwin
Age: 73 †
Born: 1809
Born: February 12
Died: 1882
Died: April 19
Beekeeper
Botanist
Carcinologist
Entomologist
Ethologist
Explorer
Geologist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Travel Writer
The Mount
Shrewsbury
Charles Robert Darwin
Charles R. Darwin
Darwin
Science
Useful
Injurious
Left
Survival
Fittest
Would
Destruction
Variations
Evolution
Variation
Neither
Preservation
Elements
Selection
Call
Element
Fluctuating
Natural
Affected
Favourable

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It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.
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The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent deity.
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Language is an art, like brewing or baking.... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.
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There is a grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful are being evolved
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Man, wonderful man, must collapse, into nature's cauldron, he is no deity, he is no exception.
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I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.
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I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.
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A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
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I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
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I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts.
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My books have sold largely in England, have been translated into many languages, and passed through several editions in foreign countries. I have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy but judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years.
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Progress has been much more general than retrogression
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The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank.
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I always make special notes about evidence that contridicts me: supportive evidence I can remember without trying.
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The season of love is that of battle. The roots of these fights run deep.
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Great is the power of steady misrepresentation but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.
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On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and comparing them to placental mammals: “An unbeliever . . . might exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work'”
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There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties...The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.
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The traveler may feel assured, he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates. In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humored patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the best of every occurrence.
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