It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, a mere heart of stone.
A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.
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 salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
It is not the strongest nor the most intelligent species that survive, but the most responsive to change.
A man’s actions seem to be governed by his character, but his character is determined by the brain, and his brain development is determined by prenatal conditions, therefore his actions are determined by the prenatal conditions of his mother and by her mother before her.
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, a mere heart of stone.
Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.
What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horribly cruel works of nature!
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.
There is grandeur in this view of life… 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.
We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
It has often and confidently been asserted, that man’s origin can never be known: but 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.
Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by the short and sure, though slow, steps.
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 salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.
A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
A man’s own rights and the rights of others will be less often tampered with if he feels that these are secure.
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.
An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.
I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men.
We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
As for myself, I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to Science.
The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason.
Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence unless he is prevented by some very powerful agency.
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
The birth both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance.
We stopped looking for monsters under our bed once we realized they were inside us.
I am not the least afraid to die.
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