Quotes from Charles Darwin

It has been a bitter mortification for me to digest the conclusion that the 'race is for the strong' and that I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in science.

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection

The Grecian poet, Theognis ... saw how important selection, if carefully applied, would be for the improvement of mankind. He saw likewise that wealth often checks the proper action of sexual selection.

the works of Nature are to those of Art.

When on board H.M.S. 'Beagle,' as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America

muchísimas de las variaciones domésticas más marcadas no podrían vivir en estado salvaje, puesto que en muchos casos no sabemos cuál sea el tronco primitivo, y por consiguiente, no podemos decir si se ha verificado o no el retroceso casi perfecto, mientras que para evitar los efectos del cruzamiento sería necesario que una sola variedad hubiera quedado suelta en su nueva residencia.

como se producen más individuos que los que pueden sobrevivir, tiene que haber en cada caso una lucha por la existencia, ya de un individuo con otro de su misma especie o con individuos de especies distintas, ya con las condiciones físicas de vida.

FROM THE point of view of modern intellectual life and culture, On the Origin of Species is one of the most important scientific books of all time.

La selección natural obra solamente por medio de la conservación de las variaciones que son en algún concepto ventajosas. Podemos comprender que cualquier forma representada por pocos individuos correrá mucho riesgo de quedar completamente extinguida

Podemos creer que la selección natural llegue a producir, por una parte, un órgano de insignificante importancia, como la cola de la jirafa, que sirve de espantamoscas, y por otra parte, un órgano tan maravilloso como el ojo?

The imagination is one of the highest prerogatives of man.

since all organisms vary, and all reproduce themselves in greater numbers than can survive, there must always be competition between variants; in other words, the principle of natural selection, too, is universally applicable.

species of the same genus would occasionally exhibit reversions to lost ancestral characters.

If I had my life over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have thus been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes 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.

I have kept every breed which I could purchase or obtain, and have been most kindly favoured with skins from several quarters of the world, more especially by the Hon. W. Elliot from India, and by the Hon. C. Murray from Persia.

The laws governing inheritance are for the most part unknown.

Habiendo tenido ejemplares vivos de casi todas las castas inglesas de aves de corral, habiéndoselas criado y cruzado, después de examinar sus esqueletos, nos parece casi cierto que en su totalidad descienden de la raza salvaje india Gallus bankiva.

Ignorance breeds confidence more often than knowledge

But hereditary diseases and some other facts make me believe that the rule has a wider extension, and that, when there is no apparent reason why a peculiarity should appear at any particular age, yet it does tend to appear in the offspring at the same period at which it first appeared in the parent. I believe this rule to be of the highest importance in explaining the laws of embryology.

I believe in Natural Selection, not because I can prove in any single case that it has changed one species into another, but because it groups and explains well (as it seems to me) a host of facts in classification, embryology, morphology, rudimentary organs, geological succession and distribution.

a lie can run around the internet before the truth has logged on to facebook

Though nature grants vast periods of time for the work of natural selection, she does not grant an indefinite period; for as all organic beings are striving, it may be said, to seize on each place in the economy of nature, if any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will soon be exterminated.

revert to the wild aboriginal stock.

Did man, after his first inroad into South America, destroy, as has been suggested, the unwieldy Megatherium and the other Edentata?