Quote#God & Faith
Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more…
Quote byCharles Darwin · 1809–1882
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887), volume I, chapter VIII: "Religion", page 312.
English (original)
Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.
— Charles Darwin
More from Charles Darwin
Even insects express anger, terror, jealousy, and love by their stridulation.
… cell of a tentacle, showing the various forms successively assumed by the aggregated masses of protoplasm.
The Beagle staid at St. Helena five days, during which time I lived in the clouds in the centre of the Isd.—It is a curious little world within itself; the habitable part is surrounded by a broad band of black desolate rocks, as if the …
Through the principle of associated habit, the same movements of the face and eyes are practised, and can, indeed, hardly be avoided, whenever we know or believe that others are blaming, or too strongly praising, our moral conduct.
[T]he young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements.
The subject may appear an insignificant one, but we shall see that it possesses some interest; and the maxim "de minimis lex non curat," does not apply to science.