Sympathy for the lowest animals is one of the noblest virtues with which man is endowed.

It at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed.

Our faculties are more fitted to recognize the wonderful structure of a beetle than a Universe.

What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern?

How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far 'truer' in character than man's productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship?

I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men

I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me.