"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man."

"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin."

"I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men"

"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic."

"The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts."

"An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men."

"We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us."

"Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive."

"Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions."

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

"We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."

"Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral."

"In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed."

"We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act."

"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."

"Great is the power of steady misrepresentation"

"Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends."

"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone."

"...for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear."

"Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science."

"I am not the least afraid to die"

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

"It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance."

"To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact."

"There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery."

"We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it."

"The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."

"Dr Blair . . . asked . . . whether he thought any man of a modern age could have written such poems [Ossian] . . . `Yes, Sir, many men, many women, and many children.'"

"From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life."

"Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be."

"Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us"

"The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions."

"Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic"

"The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be rekindled by intervals of absence"

"Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions"

"Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement."

"My dear friend, clear your mind of can't."

"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."

"Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging."

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

"Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize"

"What we ever hope to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence."

"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."

"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."

"Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements."

"Smoking. . . is a shocking thing, blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes and noses, and having the same thing done to us."

"I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed."

"...I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can.—"

"Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character."

"The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed."