The quotations of

Charles Darwin

English naturalist and biologist

1809–1882

22 quotes, most often on Science, Nature and Life & Death. Part of the Scientists collection.

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?
- Science
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections,⁠—a mere heart of stone.
Letter to T.H. Huxley, 9 July 1857, More Letters of Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin and A.C. Seward, editors (1903) volume I, chapter II: “Evolution, 1844-1858”, page 98
- Science
Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.
Autobiography (1958), page 70
- Science
I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.
Recollection by E. Ray Lankester, from his essay “Charles Robert Darwin” in C.D. Warner, editor, Library of the World’s Best Literature: Ancient and Modern (R.S. Peale & J.A. Hill, New York, 1896) volume 2, pages 4835-4393, at page 4391
- Science
It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
The Descent of Man (1871) volume I, “Introduction”, p. 3
- Science
It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter.
Letter to J.D. Hooker, 29 March 1863
- Science
Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work worthy the interposition of a deity. More humble, and I believe truer, to consider him created from animals.
“Notebook C” (1838), pp. 196–197
- Pride
- Science
How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!
Letter to Henry Fawcett (18 September 1861), in Life of Henry Fawcett (1885) by Leslie Stephen, pp. 100-101
- Science
This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection.
On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter IV (1 of 2)In context
- Nature
- Science
It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.
On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter IV (1 of 2)In context
- Nature
- Science
What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern, and should include the same bones, in the same relative positions?
On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter XIIIIn context
- Nature
- Science
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter XIVIn context

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