Quote

Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes.

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
Causes
Hopeless
Class
Final
Nothing
Attempt
Finals
Explain
Doctrine
Similarity
Patterns
Utility
Members
Pattern

More quotes by Charles Darwin

Image
In my simplicity, I remember wondering why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist.
Charles Darwin
Image
When the sexes differ in beauty, in the power of singing, or in producing what I have called instrumental music, it is almost invariably the male which excels the female.
Charles Darwin
Image
I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever - much cleverer than the discoverers - never originate anything.
Charles Darwin
Image
Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory.
Charles Darwin
Image
It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards.
Charles Darwin
Image
It is scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the dog.
Charles Darwin
Image
Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.
Charles Darwin
Image
Language is an art, like brewing or baking.... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.
Charles Darwin
Image
I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age.
Charles Darwin
Image
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
Charles Darwin
Image
The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.
Charles Darwin
Image
It occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made of this question (the origin of the species) by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it
Charles Darwin
Image
If I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much as I have accomplished.
Charles Darwin
Image
Not one change of species into another is on record ... we cannot prove that a single species has been changed.
Charles Darwin
Image
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
Image
I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.
Charles Darwin
Image
...I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can.—
Charles Darwin
Image
Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist.
Charles Darwin
Image
What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly.
Charles Darwin
Image
I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
Charles Darwin