Charles Darwin, fully Charles Robert Darwin

Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment – originating in the social instinct, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in alter times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit.

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

As for future life, every person must judge for themself between conflicting vague possibilities.

If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes 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.

Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits.

Man… derives his moral sense from the social feelings which are instinctive or innate in the lower animals.

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

The more we know of the fixed laws of nature, the more incredible do miracles become.

There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate, that if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair.