Charles Robert Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted and considered a foundational concept in science. These Charles Darwin quotes will motivate you.
Best Charles Darwin Quotes
- “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.” ~ Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin quotes on change
- “It is not the biggest, the brightest, or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” ~ Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin quotes on ignorance
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“Man, wonderful man, must collapse, into nature’s cauldron, he is no deity, he is no exception.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Much love much trial, but what an utter desert is life without love.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Even the humblest mammal’s strong sexual, parental, and social instincts give rise to ‘do unto others as yourself’ and ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Some call it Evolution, And others call it God.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives, but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Till facts are grouped & called there can be no prediction. The only advantage of discovering laws is to foretell what will happen & to see bearing of scattered facts.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn’t there.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps” ~ Charles Darwin
- “I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “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, Charles Darwin quotes on evolution
- “It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Such simple instincts as bees making a beehive could be sufficient to overthrow my whole theory.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in a distant country.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly have been said to have done so instinctively.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“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
- “…for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “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
- “The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“Not one change of species into another is on record … we cannot prove that a single species has been changed.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “It’s not the strongest, but the most adaptable that survive.” ~ Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin quotes on adaptation
- “Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men” ~ Charles Darwin
- “We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy the interposition of a great deity. More humble and I believe true to consider him created from animals.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Free will is to mind what chance is to matter.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” ~ Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin quotes on animals
- “It is impossible to conceive of this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.” ~ Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin quotes on natural selection
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“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “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.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage.” ~ Charles Darwin”The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “An agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “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
- “Even people who aren’t geniuses can outthink the rest of mankind if they develop certain thinking habits.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.” ~ Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin quotes on nature
- “The more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become, – that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, – that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, – that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses; – by such reflections as these… I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.” ~ Charles Darwin
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“Only the fittest will survive.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being, but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm–a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organized form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians.” ~ Charles Darwin
- “Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” ~ Charles Darwin
