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It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attraction.

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
Shrewsbury
Charles Robert Darwin
Charles R. Darwin
Darwin
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More quotes by Charles Darwin

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The Times is getting more detestable (but that is too weak word) than ever.
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 presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages.
Charles Darwin
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It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.
Charles Darwin
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I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
Charles Darwin
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As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.
Charles Darwin
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...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
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It is not the conscience which raises a blush, for a man may sincerely regret some slight fault committed in solitude, or he may suffer the deepest remorse for an undetected crime, but he will not blush... It is not the sense of guilt, but the thought that others think or know us to be guilty which crimsons the face.
Charles Darwin
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Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music.
Charles Darwin
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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
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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.
Charles Darwin
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That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes. Which is more likely, that pain and evil are the result of an all-powerful and good God, or the product of uncaring natural forces? The presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection.
Charles Darwin
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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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...one doubts existence of free will [because] every action determined by heredity, constitution, example of others or teaching of others. This view should teach one profound humility, one deserves no credit for anything...nor ought one to blame others.
Charles Darwin
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The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile.
Charles Darwin
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And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.
Charles Darwin
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We behold the face of nature bright with gladness.
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 never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age.
Charles Darwin
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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.
Charles Darwin