Evolution - Quotes

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct. - George Bernard Shaw

As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. - Charles Darwin

As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection. - Charles Darwin

Evolution has never found a way to be any speed but very slow. - Jaron Lainer

Evolution is a tinkerer. - Francois Jacob

Evolution is like walking on a rolling barrel. The walker isn't so much interested in where the barrel is going as he is in keeping on top of it. - Robert Frost

Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so out of man the superman emerges. - Sri Aurobindo

Human beings are so destructive. I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase. - Michael Crichton

I don't understand why people insist on pitting concepts of evolution and creation against each other. Why can't they see that spiritualism and science are one? That bodies evolve and souls evolve and the universe is a fluid package that marries them both in a wonderful package called a human being. What's wrong with that idea? - Garth Stein

In my opinion, neither organisms nor organizations evolve slowly and surely into something better, but drift until some small change occurs which has immediate and overwhelming significance. The special role of the human being is not to wait for these favourable accidents but deliberately to introduce the small change that will have great significance. - Edwin H. Land

In short, evolution is not so much progress as it is simply change. It does not leave all its primitive forms behind. It carries them over from age to age, well knowing that they are the precious base of the pyramid on which the more fantastic and costly experiments must be carried. - Donald Culross Peattie

Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there’s nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone. - Terry Pratchett

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. - Thomas A. Edison

Of course, like every other man of intelligence and education, I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised. - Woodrow Wilson

One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die. - Charles Darwin

The advance of genetic engineering makes it quite conceivable that we will begin to design our own evolutionary progress. - Isaac Asimov

The evolution of the brain not only overshot the needs of prehistoric man, it is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use. - Arthur Koestler

The old must pass away. It has served its purpose in the cycles of evolution and must now make way for a new, more expanded and more fruitful manifestation. - David Spangler

The requirements for our evolution have changed. Survival is no longer sufficient. Our evolution now requires us to develop spiritually – to become emotionally aware and make responsible choices. It requires us to align ourselves with the values of the soul – harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for life. - Gary Zukav

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and 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

This is what evolution means – ordered progress; development from poorer to richer, from lower to higher, from less to greater--progress. In the material universe, progress to higher forms; in the moral universe, progress to higher life. - Lyman Abbott

Unbroken Evolution under uniform conditions pleased everyone – except curates and bishops; it was the very best substitute for religion; a safe, conservative practical, thoroughly Common-Law deity. - Henry Adams