101 quotes
All truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified.
On the Study of Biology (1876)
History warns us … that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.
The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species (1880)
Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
I do not advocate burning your ship to get rid of the cockroaches.
Rousseau's writings are so admirably adapted to touch both these classes that the effect they produced, especially in France, is easily intelligible.
Science … commits suicide when it adopts a creed.
The Darwin Memorial (1885)
Sound knowledge respecting the habits and mode of life of the man-like Apes has been even more difficult of attainment than correct information regarding their structure.
Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863)
The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to any one who will take it of me.
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.
Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.
The Great Quotations (1960)
In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them.
Not far from the invention of fire... we must rank the invention of doubt.
There is but one hypothesis regarding the origin of species of animals in general which has any scientific existence—that propounded by Mr. Darwin.
Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863)
I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy.
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.
Reply to Charles Kingsley (1860)
God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me.
Can any one deny that the old Israelites conceived Jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man?
The man-like Apes... have certain characters of structure and of distribution in common.
Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863)
In virtue of his intelligence the dwarf bends the Titan to his will.
Evolution and Ethics (1893)