I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

Blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. Monkeys redden from passion, but it would require an overwhelming amount of evidence to make us believe that any animal could blush.

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.

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

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent God would have designedly created...that a cat should play with mice.

The formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.

If I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much as I have accomplished.