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
The goal of evolution is self – conquest
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
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
Since evolution became fashionable, the glorification of Man has taken a new form.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
The more specific idea of Evolution now reached is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English Polymath, Philosopher, Sociologist, Political Theorist
Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense.
—Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American Paleontologist
Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.
—W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English Dramatist, Librettist, Poet, Illustrator
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
All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
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
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
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
I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.
—Charles Darwin (1809–82) English Naturalist
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
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
God created a number of possibilities in case some of his prototypes failed—that is the meaning of evolution.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
Promise yourself to live your life as a revolution and not just a process of evolution.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo
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
Evolution has developed man to such a high degree that he builds zoos to keep his ancestors in cages.
—Unknown
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
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
It is curious how there seems to be an instinctive disgust in Man for his nearest ancestors and relations. If only Darwin could conscientiously have traced man back to the Elephant or the Lion or the Antelope, how much ridicule and prejudice would have been spared to the doctrine of Evolution.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer
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
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
It is disturbing to discover in oneself these curious revelations of the validity of the Darwinian theory. If it is true that we have sprung from the ape, there are occasions when my own spring appears not to have been very far.
—Cornelia Otis Skinner (1899–1979) American Actress, Playwright
It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Two million years from now the scientists can start a row by claming that the creatures of that period descended from us.
—Unknown
My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
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 are no shortcuts in evolution.
—Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Jurist
All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American Philosopher, Logician, Mathematician
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
Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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
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
I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Biologically the species is the accumulation of the experiments of all its successful individuals since the beginning.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
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
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
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
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
One of the stupidest theories of Western life.
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–90) English Journalist, Author, Media Personality, Satirist
All the ills from which America suffers can be traced to the teaching of evolution
—William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) American Political leader, Diplomat, Politician
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
After listening to a lecture on evolution by a science professor, a student wrote a poem and titled it “The Amazing Professor.” The poem read: Once I was a tadpole when I began to begin. Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in. Next I was a monkey on a coconut tree. Now I am a doctor with a Ph.D.
—Unknown