Charles Darwin Quotes About Agnosticism

Quotes about: Agnosticism

• We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Law, Theory Of Evolution

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.21, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.

  Charles Darwin

  God, Garden, Thinking

• How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.

  Charles Darwin

  Religious, Men, Essence

  Charles Darwin (1871). “The Descent of man”, p.95

• 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.

  Charles Darwin

  Believe, Men, Long

  Charles Darwin (2003). “On the Origin of Species”, p.433, Broadview Press

• When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.

  Charles Darwin

  Eye, Voice, People

• The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Atheist, Insightful

  Charles Darwin (2010). “The Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 29: “Erasmus Darwin” by Ernest Krause, with a Preliminary Notice by Charles Darwin; “The Autobiography of Charles Darwin” Edited by Nora Barlow; and Consolidated Index”, p.124, NYU Press

• As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

  Charles Darwin

  Life, Men, Judging

  The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Religion (p. 277)

• I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.

  Charles Darwin

  Men, Ideas, Long

  Charles Darwin (1871). “The Descent of Man: And Selection in Relation to Sex”, p.395

• But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice.

  Charles Darwin

  Cat, Play, Design

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.28, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to show why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower from, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance.

  Charles Darwin

  Men, Law, Mind

  Charles Darwin (1883). “The Descent of Man and Seletion in Relation to Sex”, p.613, Рипол Классик

• I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent God would have designedly created...that a cat should play with mice.

  Charles Darwin

  Cat, Play, Should

• A celebrated author and divine has written to me that he has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that he created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws.

  Charles Darwin

  Believe, Self, Law

  Charles Darwin (1869). “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.417

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