Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd [should] be forestalled ... I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters.

It may be doubted that there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures.

Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.

Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have.

It's not the strongest, but the most adaptable that survive.

I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it.

The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power.