"I have tried to be a good boy, and I have done my best."

"I have gradually come to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation."

"Nothing 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."

"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."

"I confess I am not much interested in the future, for I am too much occupied with the present."