Quotes from Erasmus Darwin

To respect the cat is the beginning of the aesthetic sense.

Birth after birth the line unchanging runs, And fathers live transmitted in their sons; Each passing year beholds the unvarying kinds, The same their manners, and the same their minds:Till, as erelong successive buds decay, And insect-shoals successive pass away, Increasing wants the pregnant parent vex With the fond wish to form a softer sex. ..

Organic life beneath the shoreless waves Was born and rais'd in Ocean's pearly caves First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass; These, as successive generations bloom, New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume; Whence countless groups of vegetation spring, And breathing realms of fin, and feet and wing.

No radiant pearl, which crested Fortune wears, No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's wars. Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn, Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn, Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.

Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!' and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!

Soon shall thy arm, UNCONQUER'D STEAM! afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear The flying-chariot through the fields of air.

By firm immutable immortal laws Impress'd on Nature by the GREAT FIRST CAUSE, Say, MUSE! how rose from elemental strife Organic forms, and kindled into life; How Love and Sympathy with potent charm Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm; Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains, And bind Society in golden chains.

It is often hazardous to marry an heiress, as she is not unfrequently the last of a diseased family.

The mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first. [The first concept of a 'big bang' theory of the universe.]

Bade round the youth explosive steam aspire, In gathering clouds, and wing'd the wave with fire; Bade with cold streams the quick expansion stop, And sunk the immense of vapour to a drop.- Press'd by the ponderous air the Piston falls Resistless, sliding through its iron walls; Quick moves the balanced beam, of giant-birth, Wields his large limbs, and nodding shakes the earth.

Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form: Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars and shines, another and the same.

The mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first.

Life is a forced state! I am surprized that we live, rather than that our friends die.

Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afarDrag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;Or on wide-waving wings expanded bearThe flying-chariot through the fields of air.

The hypochondriac disease consists in indigestion and consequent flatulency, with anxiety or want of pleasurable sensation.

A fool is a man who never tried an experiment in his life.

Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear The flying chariot through the field of air.