509 Quotes by Charles Darwin

We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.

I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.

Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes.

Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer.

If man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own reception.

Such simple instincts as bees making a beehive could be sufficient to overthrow my whole theory.

The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank.

Not one change of species into another is on record ... we cannot prove that a single species has been changed.

Even the humblest mammal's strong sexual, parental, and social instincts give rise to 'do unto others as yourself' and 'love thy neighbor as thyself'.