"Probably all organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed. There is grandeur in this view of life 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 / 1809-1882 / The Origin of Species / 1859)
"When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / The Origin of Species / 1859)
"A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that he created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / The Origin of Species / 1859)
"It is impossible to concieve of this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / The Origin of Species / 1859)
"I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / The Descent of Man / 1871)
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / The Descent of Man / 1871)
"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."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / The Descent of Man / 1871)
"I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / The Descent of Man / 1871)
"False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutory pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path toward errors is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / The Descent of Man / 1871)
"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / quoted from James A. Haught, "Breaking the Last Taboo" / 1996)
"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / quoted from Michael Shermer, Introduction to the paperback edition" of How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, 2000)
"When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882 / quoted from Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, 2002)
"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars."
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882)
"On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and comparing them to placental mammals: "An unbeliever . . . might exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work'""
(Charles Darwin / 1809-1882)
