The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
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 (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity
—Richard Dawkins (b.1941) British Evolutionary Biologist, Atheist
My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on “The Survival of the Fittest.” These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Evolution is not a force but a process. Not a cause but a law.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Political Leader, Writer, Editor, Journalist
Evolution seems to close the heart to some of the plainest spiritual truths while it opens the mind to the wildest guesses advanced in the name of science.
—William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) American Political leader, Diplomat, Politician
The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.
—Charles Darwin (1809–82) English Naturalist
Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Man has lost the basic skill of the ape, the ability to scratch its back. Which gave it extraordinary independence, and the liberty to associate for reasons other than the need for mutual back-scratching.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
Two million years from now the scientists can start a row by claming that the creatures of that period descended from us.
—Unknown
The tide of evolution carries everything before it, thoughts no less than bodies, and persons no less than nations
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Evolution is fascinating to watch. To me it is the most interesting when one can observe the evolution of a single man.
—Shana Alexander (1925–2005) American Journalist, Editor, Author
The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious viciousness toward its own kind. Humanization was not a leap forward but a groping toward survival.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American Philosopher, Logician, Mathematician
The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces—in nature, in society, in man himself.
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Russian Marxist Revolutionary
It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution born anew in the brain structure of every individual.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
There is no law of progress. Our future is in our own hands, to make or to mar. It will be an uphill fight to the end, and would we have it otherwise? Let no one suppose that evolution will ever exempt us from struggles. ‘You forget,’ said the Devil, with a chuckle, ‘that I have been evolving too.’
—William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) English Anglican Clergyman, Priest, Mystic
I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The question is this—Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new fanged theories.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Evolution is what it is. The upper classes have always died out; it’s one of the most charming things about them.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
Promise yourself to live your life as a revolution and not just a process of evolution.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo
All one’s work might have been better done; but this is a sort of reflection a worker must put aside courageously if he doesn’t mean every one of his conceptions to remain forever a private vision, an evanescent reverie.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles
—James D. Watson (b.1928) American Geneticist, Biophysicist
An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Evolution is gaining the psychic zones of the world… life, being and ascent of consciousness, could not continue to advance indefinitely along its line without transforming itself in depth. The being who is the object of his own reflection, in consequence, of that very doubling back upon himself becomes in a flash able to raise himself to a new sphere.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) French Jesuit Philosopher, Paleontologist
Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (1941–2022) American Social Critic, Essayist
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