So great is the economy of nature, that most flowers which are fertilised by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit their odour chiefly or exclusively in the evening.

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.

An agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.

Mathematics seems to endow one with something like a new sense.

Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee and spirituous liqueurs.

The love of a dog for his master is notorious; in the agony of death he has been known to caress his master, and everyone has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life.

A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Charles Darwin