Charles Darwin

It`s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

No one could be a good observer unless he was an active theoriser.

The more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become.

All observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service.

A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections - a mere heart of stone.

I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutory pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path toward errors is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.