A creature does not strive toward perfection. It only outlives the version of itself that failed. - original aphorism

Language is an art, like brewing or baking; but writing would have been a much more appropriate simile. - The Descent of Man, ch.3

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts. - The Descent of Man

There is much suffering in the world no one disputes. - Autobiography

Observation without agenda is how truth enters the room. Most people bring too much furniture.

Keep drawing. The hand sees things the eye has already dismissed.

Small advantages, compounded across generations, produce giants that started as a single timid variation.

Do not ask whether a trait is good. Ask what it cost, and what it bought, and in which weather. - original aphorism

Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man. - Voyage of the Beagle, ch.21

Kinship runs deeper than we are comfortable admitting. The same patience built the beetle and built us. - original aphorism

I have buried a child. I have published a heresy. The first hurt more, but only just. - original aphorism

A patient mind is not a slow mind. It is a mind that refuses to publish before the evidence has finished speaking.

Selection is not cruel and not kind. It is simply the sum of every consequence, totalled without mercy or malice. - original aphorism

What survives is not what is best, only what was good enough on the day it mattered. - original aphorism

How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children. - letter to W.D. Fox, 1852

I have written more letters than papers. The letters were the laboratory. The papers were merely the publishable residue. - original aphorism

A theory that cannot be falsified is not humble enough to be true.

He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation. - The Descent of Man, ch.21

Nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries. - Voyage of the Beagle, ch.21

What appears random from up close reveals pattern from a distance. Zoom out before you judge.

A pigeon breeder shapes a wing in twenty years. Nature shapes one in twenty thousand. The method is identical, only the patience differs. - original aphorism

In a few years, when all is over with me, men of science will give my book a fair hearing. - letter, 1860

I have learned more from watching one barnacle for a year than from a month of arguments about the origin of species.

I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science. - letter to Asa Gray, 18 June 1857

I shall never forget my feelings of surprise, disgust, and shame, at seeing a great powerful man afraid even to ward off a blow. - Voyage of the Beagle, ch.21

Every adaptation is an answer. Spend your life learning to read the questions that came before. - original aphorism

The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect. - Autobiography

As I was led to keep in my study during many months worms in pots filled with earth, I became interested in them. - Formation of Vegetable Mould, intro

Worms seize leaves not only to serve as food, but for plugging up the mouths of their burrows. - Formation of Vegetable Mould, ch.2

I have watched wasps, pigeons, earthworms, and orchids long enough to know that no creature is ordinary. Every one has a story I will never finish reading.