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Our faculties are more fitted to recognize the wonderful structure of a beetle than a Universe.

Charles Darwin

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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
Recognize
Structure
Wonderful
Universe
Beetle
Beetles
Fitted
Faculties
Faculty

More quotes by Charles Darwin

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I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.
Charles Darwin
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I ought, or I ought not, constitute the whole of morality.
Charles Darwin
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In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
Charles Darwin
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Such simple instincts as bees making a beehive could be sufficient to overthrow my whole theory.
Charles Darwin
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Ultimately a highly complex sentiment, having its first origin in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, confirmed by instruction and habit, all combined, constitute our moral sense or conscience.
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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Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have.
Charles Darwin
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A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct.
Charles Darwin
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Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the latter are known, or believed to be connected at the present day by intermediate gradations whereas species were formerly thus connected.
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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.
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Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal.
Charles Darwin
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Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last it was complete.
Charles Darwin
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On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.
Charles Darwin
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There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties...The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.
Charles Darwin
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It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows from the advance of science.
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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So in regard to mental qualities, their transmission is manifest in our dogs, horses and other domestic animals. Besides special tastes and habits, general intelligence, courage, bad and good tempers. etc., are certainly transmitted.
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 fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith?
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