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

One hand has surely worked throughout the universe.

Even people who aren’t geniuses can outthink the rest of mankind if they develop certain thinking habits.

We are optimists, until we are not.

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.

It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.

What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern?