Science Quotes

In the eyes of most naturalists, the structure of the embryo is even more important for classification than that of the adult. For the embryo is the animal in its less modified state; and in so far it reveals the structure of its progenitor.

It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter.

Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species.

From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the grouping of stars in constellations.

Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes.

It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.

Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.

It is impossible to conceive of this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity.

If every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty.

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

We behold the face of nature bright with gladness.

Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than humans would at first suppose.

Man, wonderful man, must collapse, into nature's cauldron, he is no deity, he is no exception.

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 ... Man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common progenitor.

I believe there exists, & I feel within me, an instinct for the truth, or knowledge or discovery, of something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue, & that our having such an instinct is reason enough for scientific researches without any practical results ever ensuing from them.

That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes. Which is more likely, that pain and evil are the result of an all-powerful and good God, or the product of uncaring natural forces? The presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection.

Farewell Australia! You ... are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret.

A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, - a mere heart of stone.

Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently, his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. The progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior.

The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science explaining the whole creation and man's place in it.