Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather.

I cannot see ... evidence of design and beneficence ... There seems to me too much misery in the world.

Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy.

If every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty.

Daily it is forced home on the mind of the biologist that nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of this earth.

The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career; yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me 30 miles to Shrewsbury, which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose.

In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.