I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.

Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.

The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile.

At no time am I a quick thinker or writer: whatever I have done in science has solely been by long pondering, patience and industry.

I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.

How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.

I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance Huxley