"Man, with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect…"

"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."

"If 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."

"What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horridly cruel works of nature!"

"Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work, worthy of the interposition of a deity. More humble and I believe truer to consider him created from animals."