It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards.

And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.

Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.

Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.

Traveling ought also to teach him distrust; but at the same time he will discover, how many truly kind-hearted people there are, with whom he never before had, or ever again will have any further communication, who yet are ready to offer him the most disinterested assistance.

The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.

I had gradually come, by this time [1839-01], to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc. and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.