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Erasmus Darwin Quotes

1731–1802 England

Erasmus Darwin (12 December 1731 – 18 April 1802) was an English physician, natural philosopher, physiologist, inventor and poet. He was one of the founder members of the Lunar Society, a discussion group of pioneering industrialists and natural philosophers.

England
Biologists
Botanists
Philosophers
Physicians

Also known as: Darwin, Erasmus

Random Erasmus Darwin quote

11 quotes

And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.

And the mass starts into a million suns;
Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issue from the first.

The Botanic Garden (1791)

On the blasted heath
Fell Upas sits, the hydra-tree of death.

Fell Oestrus buries in her rapid course
Her countless brood in stag, or bull, or horse;
Whose hungry larva eats its living way,
Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day.

The Temple of Nature (1804)

The wing'd Ichneumon for her embryon young
Gores with sharp horn the caterpillar throng.
The cruel larva mines its silky course,
And tears the vitals of its fostering nurse.

Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal NATURE lifts her changeful form:
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.

Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words, "Eat or be Eaten!" and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!

Phytologia: or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening (1800)

[Unitarianism is] a feather-bed to catch a falling Christian.

Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the fields of air.

Arrest with rising jaw the tribes above;
With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour
Shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour.
―Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day
One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display!
From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd,
And one great Slaughter-house the warring world!"

No radiant pearl which crested Fortune wears,
No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's ears,
Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn,
Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn,
Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows
Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.

The Botanic Garden (1791)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Erasmus Darwin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.