Quote#Work
He remarks that "considering their weakness and their size, the work…
Quote byCharles Darwin · 1809–1882
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881), Introduction, p. 6..
English (original)
He remarks that "considering their weakness and their size, the work they are represented to have accomplished is stupendous." Here we have an instance of that inability to sum up the effects of a continually recurrent cause, which has often retarded the progress of science, as formerly in the case of geology, and more recently in that of the principle of evolution.
— Charles Darwin
More from Charles Darwin
… cell of a tentacle, showing the various forms successively assumed by the aggregated masses of protoplasm.
Even insects express anger, terror, jealousy, and love by their stridulation.
[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 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.
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.