Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.

I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me.

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

we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps

I am not the least afraid to die

It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo stillmore complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.

...for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.