Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
Charles DarwinRead
Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Darwin reflects on human ancestry, emphasizing its extensive history but questioning its nobility.
In this quote, Charles Darwin suggests that while humans possess an impressive lineage stretching back through countless generations, this history does not necessarily confer nobility or superiority. He highlights a tension between the extensive evolutionary history of humans and the qualities that might define a noble character, prompting a reflection on what it truly means to be 'noble' in the context of our origins.
Themes
EvolutionHuman NatureAncestryNobilityDarwin
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on human evolution in a philosophy class.
More from Charles Darwin
All quotes βThe highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
Charles DarwinRead
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.
Charles DarwinRead
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.
Charles DarwinRead
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
Charles DarwinRead
we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps
Charles DarwinRead
Similar quotes
Money is a miraculous thing. It is your personal energy reduced to a portable form and endowed with power you yourself do not possess. It can go where you cannot go; speak languages you cannot speak; lift burdens you cannot touch with your fingers; save lives with which you cannot deal directly.
Harry Emerson FosdickRead
The truth is that every morning war is declared afresh. And the men who wish to continue it are as guilty as the men who began it, more guilty perhaps, for the latter perhaps did not foresee all its horrors.
Marcel ProustRead
Realization is not knowledge about the universe, but the living experience of the nature of the universe. Until we have such living experience, we remain dependent on examples, and subject to their limits.
Namkhai NorbuRead
The great philosophers and the great works are standards for the selection of what is essential. Everything that we do in studying the history of philosophy ultimately serves their better understanding.
Karl JaspersRead
He lived in chambers that had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again.
Charles DickensRead
I said that if an alien came to visit, I'd be embarrassed to tell them that we fight wars to pull fossil fuels out of the ground to run our transportation. They'd be like, 'What?'
Neil Degrasse TysonRead