evolution
“From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
“It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”
“We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”
“We are a glorious accident of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected product of evolutionary principles.”
“We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of all possible universes.”
“I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.”
“There is grandeur in this view of life.”
“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.”