Each organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical ratio . . . each at some period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction . . . The vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.

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.

To my deep mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family."

Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy.

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

And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.

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