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On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in natural history, “Natura non facit saltum.” This canon, if we look only to the present inhabitants of the world, is not strictly correct, but if we include all those of past times, it must by my theory be strictly true.

Charles Darwin

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Charles Darwin
Age: 73 †
Born: 1809
Born: February 12
Died: 1882
Died: April 19
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The Mount
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Charles Robert Darwin
Charles R. Darwin
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Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, ... temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.
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A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct actions of external conditions, and so forth.
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Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather.
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What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly.
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It strikes me that all our knowledge about the structure of our Earth is very much like what an old hen would know of the hundred-acre field in a corner of which she is scratching.
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I trust and believe that the time spent in this voyage ... will produce its full worth in Natural History and it appears to me the doing what little we can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue.
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Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, ... I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.
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The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry.
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And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.
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Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embellishment.
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The season of love is that of battle. The roots of these fights run deep.
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It at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed.
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It is impossible to concieve of this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity.
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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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The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet and in seeing the laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power.
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I ought, or I ought not, constitute the whole of morality.
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If I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much as I have accomplished.
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On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.
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Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory.
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Some call it evolution, And others call it God.
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