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...I believe there exists, & I feel within me, an instinct for the truth, or knowledge or discovery, of something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue, & that our having such an instinct is reason enough for scientific researches without any practical results ever ensuing from them.

Charles Darwin

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Charles Darwin
Age: 73 †
Born: 1809
Born: February 12
Died: 1882
Died: April 19
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Charles Robert Darwin
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More quotes by Charles Darwin

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The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than the woman. Whether deep thought, reason, or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands.....We may also infer.....The average mental power in man must be above that of woman.
Charles Darwin
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I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts.
Charles Darwin
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Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals.
Charles Darwin
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I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness.
Charles Darwin
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Blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. Monkeys redden from passion, but it would require an overwhelming amount of evidence to make us believe that any animal could blush.
Charles Darwin
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I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects.
Charles Darwin
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We are optimists, until we are not.
Charles Darwin
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The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children.
Charles Darwin
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In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God ... I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.
Charles Darwin
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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
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The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.
Charles Darwin
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I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone.
Charles Darwin
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But then 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. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
Charles Darwin
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...conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse.
Charles Darwin
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The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.
Charles Darwin
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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
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At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world.
Charles Darwin
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The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians.
Charles Darwin
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To my deep mortification my father once said to me, You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.
Charles Darwin
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Mathematics seems to endow one with something like a new sense.
Charles Darwin