black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree

Charles Darwin

The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
CHARLES DARWIN

Attribution Creature Live Love Man
Even when we are quite alone, how often do we think with pleasure or pain of what others think of us – of their imagined approbation or disapprobation.
CHARLES DARWIN

Alone Imagination Pain Pleasure Quite Thinking
It is impossible to concieve of this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity.
CHARLES DARWIN

Blind Chance Conceive Immense Impossible Necessary Result Universe Wonderful
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
CHARLES DARWIN

Cause Greatness Insitution Misery Nature Poor Poverty Sin
From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed. To group all facts under some general laws.
CHARLES DARWIN

Fact Group Law Observation Strong Understand Youth
It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.
CHARLES DARWIN

Absorb Evil Man Myself Subject
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, – a mere heart of stone.
CHARLES DARWIN

Affection Heart Man Science Stone
Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such care.
CHARLES DARWIN

Cattle Character Dog Horse Man Marriage
I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.
CHARLES DARWIN

Absolute Addition Natural Requirement Science Selection Stage Theory
It strikes me that all our knowledge about the structure of our Earth is very much like what an old hen would know of the hundred-acre field in a corner of which she is scratching.
CHARLES DARWIN

Corner Earth Hen Knowledge Scratch Strike Structure
Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy of the interposition of a deity. More humble, and I believe truer, to consider him created from animals.
CHARLES DARWIN

Animal Arrogance Believe Humble Man Work Worth
Much love much trial, but what an utter desert is life without love.
CHARLES DARWIN

Desert Life Love Trial
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
CHARLES DARWIN

Act Government Law Planet Satellite Science Sun System Universe
How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.
CHARLES DARWIN

Children Future Present Surround
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.
CHARLES DARWIN

Control Culture Moral Recognise Stage Thinking
For the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.
CHARLES DARWIN

Important Shield Sword Victory
A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
CHARLES DARWIN

Friendship Man Measure Worth
A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives – of approving of some and disapproving of others.
CHARLES DARWIN

Action Approve Capable Moral Reflection
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
CHARLES DARWIN

Book Reading
I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects.
CHARLES DARWIN

Body Die Inch Insect Talk
If every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty.
CHARLES DARWIN

Beauty Cast Same Science
Such simple instincts as bees making a beehive could be sufficient to overthrow my whole theory.
CHARLES DARWIN

Bee Instinct Science Sufficient Theory Throw
Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.
CHARLES DARWIN

Length Man Noble Quality
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
CHARLES DARWIN

Animal Collaboration History Human
Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.
CHARLES DARWIN

Goodness Man Nature Selection
A language, like a species, when extinct, never – reappears.
CHARLES DARWIN

Appearance Language Species
The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.
CHARLES DARWIN

Change Strong World

To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree

Related Topics

Popular Authors

To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Charles Darwin Quotes