Quote

Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.

Charles Darwin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Noble
Thus
Quality
Given
May
Men
Pedigree
Prodigious
Length

More quotes by Charles Darwin

Image
I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts.
Charles Darwin
Image
I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects.
Charles Darwin
Image
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.
Charles Darwin
Image
Farewell Australia! You ... are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret.
Charles Darwin
Image
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
Image
A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones
Charles Darwin
Image
My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.
Charles Darwin
Image
The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith?
Charles Darwin
Image
Life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing.
Charles Darwin
Image
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
Charles Darwin
Image
I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.
Charles Darwin
Image
It at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed.
Charles Darwin
Image
I ought, or I ought not, constitute the whole of morality.
Charles Darwin
Image
Who when examining in the cabinet of the entomologist the gay and exotic butterflies, and singular cicadas, will associate with these lifeless objects, the ceaseless harsh music of the latter, and the lazy flight of the former - the sure accompaniments of the still, glowing noonday of the tropics.
Charles Darwin
Image
It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another...we consider those, where the intellectual faculties most developed as the highest. - A bee doubtless would [use] ... instincts as a criteria.
Charles Darwin
Image
It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows from the advance of science.
Charles Darwin
Image
It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards.
Charles Darwin
Image
It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist. ... I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.
Charles Darwin
Image
...conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse.
Charles Darwin
Image
Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist.
Charles Darwin