In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed..

I believe we were all glad to leave New Zealand. It is not a pleasant place. Amongst the natives there is absent that charming simplicity .... and th….

I trust and believe that the time spent in this voyage ... will produce its full worth in Natural History; and it appears to me the doing what little….

Our faculties are more fitted to recognize the wonderful structure of a beetle than a Universe..

We have happy days, remember good dinners..

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

So in regard to mental qualities, their transmission is manifest in our dogs, horses and other domestic animals. Besides special tastes and habits, g….

I always make special notes about evidence that contridicts me: supportive evidence I can remember without trying..

We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitan….

Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species..

The lower animals, on the other hand, must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be r….

Sympathy will have been increased through natural selection.

Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral..

It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance..

At no time am I a quick thinker or writer: whatever I have done in science has solely been by long pondering, patience and industry..

On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in natural history, “Natura non facit saltum.” This c….

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation t….

Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life.

This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almos….

It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and free….

I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me..