After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.
Charles DarwinNothing 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.
Charles DarwinA novel according to my taste, does not come into the moderately good class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love - and if a pretty woman, all the better.
Charles DarwinIn my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God ... I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.
Charles DarwinWe are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.
Charles DarwinIf it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.
Charles DarwinThere is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Charles Darwin