When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.

I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things; and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever - much cleverer than the discoverers - never originate anything.

Language is an art, like brewing or baking.... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.

The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.

As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been specially created and adapted for that country, being beaten and supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land.

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

Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather.