Quote

Building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.

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
Smarter
Merely
Building
Results
Better
Mousetrap
Mice

More quotes by Charles Darwin

Image
There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.
Charles Darwin
Image
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
Image
Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy.
Charles Darwin
Image
To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree
Charles Darwin
Image
We fancied even that the bushes smelt unpleasantly.
Charles Darwin
Image
It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.
Charles Darwin
Image
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
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
We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.
Charles Darwin
Image
A language, like a species, when extinct, never... reappears.
Charles Darwin
Image
He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.
Charles Darwin
Image
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
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
The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.
Charles Darwin
Image
I ought, or I ought not, constitute the whole of morality.
Charles Darwin
Image
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
Image
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
Charles Darwin
Image
A surprising number [of novels] have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily-against which a law ought to be passed.
Charles Darwin
Image
I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.
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