Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science....It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.

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.

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

we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps