We have happy days, remember good dinners.

I cannot see ... evidence of design and beneficence ... There seems to me too much misery in the world.

I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs.

About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!

I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation.

Man himself cannot express love and humility by external signs, so plainly as does a dog, when with drooping ears, hanging lips, flexuous body, and wagging tail, he meets his beloved master.

Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.