Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.

I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects.

The more one thinks, the more one feels the hopeless immensity of man's ignorance.

I fully subscribe to the judgement of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animal, the moral sense of conscience is by far the most important....It is the most noble of all the attributes of man.

As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

I feel like an old warhorse at the sound of a trumpet when I read about the capturing of rare beetles.

The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form.