Quote

Natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight successive favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification it can act only by very short steps.

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
Great
Solely
Selection
Accumulating
Sudden
Successive
Acts
Modification
Short
Variations
Produce
Favorable
Steps
Slight
Natural
Variation

More quotes by Charles Darwin

Image
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'”
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
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.
Charles Darwin
Image
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.
Charles Darwin
Image
A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created.
Charles Darwin
Image
[Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived.
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
But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand.
Charles Darwin
Image
I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it.
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
Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.
Charles Darwin
Image
Man, wonderful man, must collapse, into nature's cauldron, he is no deity, he is no exception.
Charles Darwin
Image
People complain of the unequal distribution of wealth [but it is a far greater] injustice that any one man should have the power to write so many brilliant essays... There is no one who writes like [Thomas Huxley].
Charles Darwin
Image
I often had to run very quickly to be on time, and from being a fleet runner was generally successful but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided.
Charles Darwin
Image
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.
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
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
Charles Darwin
Image
When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.
Charles Darwin
Image
There is a grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful are being evolved
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