Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.

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

On your life, underestimating the proclivities of finches is likely to lead to great internal hemorrhaging.

Great is the power of steady misrepresentation

Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.

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.

It is a truly wonderful fact - the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity - that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group.