Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZSwas an English naturalist and geologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in...
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth12 February 1809
CityShrewsbury, England
civilization evolution human million race tame ten thousand wild
The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man is and will always be a wild animal.
arrive control highest moral morality ought recognize stage
The highest stage in moral ure at which we can arrive is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
birds black cared fancy few great huge large seemed surrounded
These huge reptiles, surrounded by the black lava, the leafless shrubs and large cacti, seemed to my fancy like some antediluvian animals. The few dull-colored birds cared no more for me than they did for the great tortoises.
drunk men monkey thus touch wiser
An American Monkey after getting drunk on Brandy would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men
hard-work years giving
After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.
believe knowledge littles
I trust and believe that the time spent in this voyage ... will produce its full worth in Natural History; and it appears to me the doing what little we can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue.
distance believe eye
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree...The difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection , though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered subversive of the theory.
men rewards belief
A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones
powerful giving environmental
The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage.
differences fundamentals faculty
There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties
children real emotional
It is well-known that those who have charge of young infants, that it is difficult to feel sure when certain movements about their mouths are really expressive; that is when they really smile. Hence I carefully watched my own infants. One of them at the age of forty-five days, and being in a happy frame of mind, smiled... I observed the same thing on the following day: but on the third day the child was not quite well and there was no trace of a smile, and this renders it probable that the previous smiles were real.
years practice three
If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly have been said to have done so instinctively.