It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats.

I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs.

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

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.

I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please.

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