Evolutionary Wisdom: The Top 99 Quotes by Charles Darwin

Discover a treasure trove of evolutionary wisdom with this collection of the top 99 quotes by Charles Darwin. Immerse yourself in the brilliant mind of the renowned naturalist and explorer as he shares profound insights into the mysteries of evolution and the interconnectedness of all living beings. From thought-provoking observations to groundbreaking theories, these quotes encapsulate Darwin’s revolutionary ideas that continue to shape our understanding of the natural world.

Charles Darwin Quotes

1- “Such simple instincts as bees making a beehive could be sufficient to overthrow my whole theory.” – Charles Darwin

2- “This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection.” – Charles Darwin

3- “Origin of man now proved.—Metaphysics must flourish.—He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.” – Charles Darwin

4- “Natural selection rendered evolution scientifically intelligible: it was this more than anything else which convinced professional biologists like Sir Joseph Hooker, T. H. Huxley and Ernst Haeckel.” – Charles Darwin

5- “But Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.” – Charles Darwin

6- “Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in my ‘Origin of Species.” – Charles Darwin

7- ““One hand has surely worked throughout the universe.” – Charles Darwin

8- “This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest.” – Charles Darwin

9- “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” – Charles Darwin

10- “If any man wants to gain a good opinion of his fellow men, he ought to do what I am doing: pester them with letters.” – Charles Darwin

11- “A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” – Charles Darwin

12- “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

13- “The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen—this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress.” – Charles Darwin

14- “Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character.” – Charles Darwin

15- “Unusual degree. This family became divided eight generations.” – Charles Darwin

16- “One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges…” – Charles Darwin

17- “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

18- “If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.” – Charles Darwin

19- “I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects…” – Charles Darwin

20- “The imagination is one of the highest prerogatives of man.” – Charles Darwin

21- “The power to charm the female has sometimes been more important than the power to conquer other males in battle. LAWS” – Charles Darwin

22- “It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on the supposition that species gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me.” – Charles Darwin

23- “Two distinct elements are included under the term “inheritance”— the transmission, and the development of characters.” – Charles Darwin

24- “The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason.” – Charles Darwin

25- “And thus, the forms of life throughout the universe become divided into groups subordinate to groups.” – Charles Darwin

26- “An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.” – Charles Darwin

27- “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 the what is the essence of the attraction of gravity?” – Charles Darwin

28- “I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please.” – Charles Darwin

29- “I think an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind. The whole subject [of God] is beyond the scope of man’s intellect.” – Charles Darwin

30- “I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference.” – Charles Darwin

31- “I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.” – Charles Darwin

32- “I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men.” – Charles Darwin

33- “What an extraordinary thing it is, Mr. Darwin seems to spend hours in cracking a horse-whip in his room, for I often hear the crack when I pass under his windows.” – Charles Darwin

34- “Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants.” – Charles Darwin

35- “I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.” – Charles Darwin

36- “The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.” – Charles Darwin

37- “I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense.” – Charles Darwin

38- “A pleasurable and excited state of mind, associated with affection, is exhibited by some dogs in a very peculiar manner, namely, by grinning.” – Charles Darwin

39- “But I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.” – Charles Darwin

40- “I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation.” – Charles Darwin

41- “Whilst Man, however well-behaved, At best is but a monkey shaved!” – Charles Darwin

42- “Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind.” – Charles Darwin

43- “I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.” – Charles Darwin

44- “The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.” – Charles Darwin

45- “[Alexander von Humboldt was the] greatest scientific traveller who ever lived.” – Charles Darwin

46- “Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire & books & music.” – Charles Darwin

47- “Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.” – Charles Darwin

48- ““Through his powers of intellect, articulate language has been evolved; and on this his wonderful advancement has mainly depended.” – Charles Darwin

49- “When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.” – Charles Darwin

50- ““Species of the same genus would occasionally exhibit reversions to lost ancestral characters.” – Charles Darwin

51- “He [Erasmus Darwin] used to say that ‘unitarianism was a feather-bed to catch a falling Christian.” – Charles Darwin

52- “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.” – Charles Darwin

53- “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.” – Charles Darwin

54- “Free will is to mind what chance is to matter.” – Charles Darwin

55- “Or she may accept, as appearances would sometimes lead us to believe, not the male which is the most attractive to her, but the one which is the least distasteful.” – Charles Darwin

56- “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

57- “In regard to the amount of difference between the races, we must make some allowance for our nice powers of discrimination gained by a long habit of observing ourselves.” – Charles Darwin

58- “A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.” – Charles Darwin

59- “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!” – Charles Darwin

60- “Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals.” — Charles Darwin

61- “The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.” – Charles Darwin

62- “The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.” – Charles Darwin

63- “Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather.” – Charles Darwin

64- “… the structure of every organic being is related, in the most essential yet often hidden manner, to that of all the other organic beings …” – Charles Darwin

65- “I have stated, that in the thirteen species of ground-finches, a nearly perfect gradation may be traced, from a beak extraordinarily thick, to one so fine, that it may be compared to that of a warbler.” – Charles Darwin

66- “I am like a gambler, and love a wild experiment.” – Charles Darwin

67″ …ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge…” – Charles Darwin

68- “On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.” – Charles Darwin

69- “It is necessary to look forward to a harvest, however distant that may be, when some fruit will be reaped, some good effected.” – Charles Darwin

70- “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” – Charles Darwin

71- “Englishmen rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief; whereas in some parts of the Continent the men shed tears much more readily and freely.” – Charles Darwin

72- “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

73- “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

74- “Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.” – Charles Darwin

75- “But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?” – Charles Darwin

76- “If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” – Charles Darwin

77- “It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature.” – Charles Darwin

78- “If it wasn’t for seasickness, all the world would be sailors!” – Charles Darwin

79- “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

80- “One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin

81- “In conclusion, it appears that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries.” – Charles Darwin

82- “What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame; the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly.” – Charles Darwin

83- “We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.” – Charles Darwin

84- “…it appears to me, the doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue.” – Charles Darwin

85- “A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, – a mere heart of stone.” – Charles Darwin

86- “But a plant on the edge of a deserts is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent upon the moisture.” – Charles Darwin

87- “Wherever the European had trod, death seemed to pursue the aboriginal.” – Charles Darwin

88- “Evolution is written on the wings of butterflies.” – Charles Darwin

89- “We are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps.” – Charles Darwin

90- “The limit of man’s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighborhood to the realms of imagination.” – Charles Darwin

91- “The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.” – Charles Darwin

92 “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” – Charles Darwin

93- “We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.” – Charles Darwin

94- “It is so important to bear in mind the probability of conversion from one function to another.” – Charles Darwin

95- “There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.” – Charles Darwin

96- “If everyone was cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty.” – Charles Darwin

97- “It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.” – Charles Darwin

98- “I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy.” – Charles Darwin

99- “I am not the least afraid to die.” – Charles Darwin