Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZS was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. Profoundly inspirational Charles Darwin quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
Famous Charles Darwin Quotes
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. 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
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. Charles Darwin
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. Charles Darwin
Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal. Charles Darwin
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
Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence. Charles Darwin
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. 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 love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. Charles Darwin
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. Charles Darwin
My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts. Charles Darwin
We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us. Charles Darwin
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. Charles Darwin
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. Charles Darwin
On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation. Charles Darwin
I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men. Charles Darwin
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, a mere heart of stone. Charles Darwin
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
Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive. 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
Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions. Charles Darwin
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts. Charles Darwin
I love fools experiments. I am always making them. Charles Darwin
Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive. Charles Darwin
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts. Charles Darwin
One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die. Charles Darwin
This preservation of favorable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call natural selection or the survival of the fittest. Charles Darwin
Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral. Charles Darwin
One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and weakest die. 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
If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. Charles Darwin
But I am very poorly today very stupid I hate everybody everything. One lives only to make blunders. Charles Darwin
The survival of preservation of certain favored words in the struggle for existence is natural selection. Charles Darwin
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
Keep steadily in mind that each organic being is striving to increase, that each at some period of its life, has the struggle for life, and suffer great destruction. The war of nature is not incessant. The vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply. Charles Darwin
Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult at least I have found it so than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. Charles Darwin
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the team of natural selection. Charles Darwin
Great is the power of steady misrepresentation. Charles Darwin
Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence. Charles Darwin
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. Charles Darwin
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. Charles Darwin
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
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
Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science. Charles Darwin
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. Charles Darwin
It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance. Charles Darwin
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one. 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
Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral. Charles Darwin
The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason. Charles Darwin
Great is the power of steady misrepresentation. Charles Darwin
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
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. Charles Darwin
In conclusion, it appears that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries. Charles Darwin
Man selects only for his own good Nature only for that of the being which she tends. 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
What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature! Charles Darwin
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
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
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
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. Charles Darwin
A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question. Charles Darwin
I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions. Charles Darwin
As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been specially created and adapted for that country, being beaten and supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land. Charles Darwin
We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. Charles Darwin
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
How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children. Charles Darwin
One hand has surely worked throughout the universe. Charles Darwin
It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine. Charles Darwin
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. Charles Darwin
