"The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason."

"We are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps"

"Wherever the European had trod, death seemed to pursue the aboriginal."

"But Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art."

"Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music."

"We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence."

"The triumph of hope over experience"

"The appearance and retirement of actors are the great events of the theatrical world; and their first performances fill the pit with conjecture and prognostication, as the first actions of a new monarch agitate nations with hope and fear"

"Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."

"Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last"

"Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing."

"Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice."

"He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions."

"I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark."

"I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse."

"Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic."

"Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well."

"There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?"

"No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other."

"There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are"

"A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice."

"The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking."

"His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises."

"It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality."

"It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other."

"Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure."

"No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring."

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. A man in a jail has more room, better food and commonly better company."

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty"

"He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel."

"To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed."

"There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence"

"The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion."

"Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy."

"The insolence of wealth will creep out"

"I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain."

"The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning."

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

"A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."

"Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all."

"Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both."

"Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return."

"At seventy-seven it is time to be earnest."

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy"

"Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him."

"There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman."

"The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty."

"In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence"

"Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable."