I have rarely read anything which has interested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a quarter of the book proper. From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.

Charles Darwin

Categorized in : Book Two Men

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats.

Charles Darwin

survival intelligent mean

The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.

Charles Darwin

nature love life

The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.

Charles Darwin

progressive able world

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

Charles Darwin

encouraging inspirational life

Building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.

Charles Darwin

mice building results

It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.

Charles Darwin

learning teaching leadership

Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life

Charles Darwin

form relation

In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

Charles Darwin

creativity teamwork knowledge

The more one thinks, the more one feels the hopeless immensity of man's ignorance.

Charles Darwin

ignorance men thinking

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

Charles Darwin

theory-of-evolution animal men

How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.

Charles Darwin

essence religious men

Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.

Charles Darwin

slave humility animal

Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.

Charles Darwin

intelligent feelings men

The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than the woman. Whether deep thought, reason, or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands.....We may also infer.....The average mental power in man must be above that of woman.

Charles Darwin

average men sex

Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.

Charles Darwin

peculiar expression inspirational

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

Charles Darwin

hypnosis love-life inspirational

There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.

Charles Darwin

pain animal men

We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.

Charles Darwin

concerned permit reason

Of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important. This sense, as Mackintosh remarks, "has a rightful supremacy over every other principle of human action"; it is summed up in that short but imperious word "ought," so full of high significance. It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment's hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, impelled simply by the deep feeling of right or duty, to sacrifice it in some great cause.

Charles Darwin

sacrifice animal men

Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal.

Charles Darwin

aboriginal pursue