Blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. Monkeys redden from passion, but it would require an overwhelming amount of evidence to make us believe that any animal could blush.

The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.

When the views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly forsee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.

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

There is a grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful are being evolved

Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.

I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.