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Quotations The Best Quotes About Evolution

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List Rules Must be a famous or well-known quote. Vote for the evolution sayings that strongly resonate with you, and downvote any you didn't like.

A list of the best evolution quotes and sayings, including the names of each speaker or author when available. This list is sorted by popularity, so only the most famous evolution quotes are at the top. The authors of these historic evolution quotes are displayed next to each quote, so if you see one you like be sure to check out other inspirational evolution quotes from that same writer.

This list answers the questions, "What are the best quotes about evolution?" and "What are inspirational evolution quotes?"

This list includes notable evolution quotes by various authors, writers, playwrights, speakers, politicians, athletes, poets, and more. Vote on your favorites so that the greatest evolution quotes rise to the top, as the order of the list changes dynamically based on votes. Don't let your favorite evolution sayings get to the bottom of the list.

list ordered by

1
25 5

Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous. Barbara Ehrenreich

2
19 4

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Charles Darwin

3
11 1

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 Russell

4
11 3

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

5
13 5

God created a number of possibilities in case some of his prototypes failed -- that is the meaning of evolution. Graham Greene

6
14 6

It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man. H. L. Mencken

7
9 2

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

8
11 4

Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved. Sir William Schwenck Gilbert

9
12 5

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

10
9 3

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

11
9 3

matt-katsoulis added "Maybe god created an ape, who doesn't like to think he's an ape."

12
10 4

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

13
11 5

“‘Creation science’ has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false.” Stephen Jay Gould

14
11 5

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 Disraeli

15
8 3

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

16
6 1

Biologically the species is the accumulation of the experiments of all its successful individuals since the beginning. H. G. Wells

17
5 0

“Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory ..." Stephen Jay Gould

18
8 4

Two million years from now the scientists can start a row by claming that the creatures of that period descended from us.

19
7 4

Our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud, by teaching evolution as fact. Tom DeLay

20
6 3

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.

21
6 3

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 Russell

22
5 3

I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey. Mark Twain

23
4 2

... each with its own beauty, and each with a story to tell. Stephen Jay Gould

24
4 2

Evolution has developed man to such a high degree that he builds zoos to keep his ancestors in cages.

25
3 1

“Humans arose ... as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness.” Stephen Jay Gould

1 25 5 Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous. Barbara Ehrenreich

3 11 1 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 Russell

5 13 5 God created a number of possibilities in case some of his prototypes failed -- that is the meaning of evolution. Graham Greene

6 14 6 It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man. H. L. Mencken

7 9 2 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

8 11 4 Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved. Sir William Schwenck Gilbert

10 9 3 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

11 9 3 matt-katsoulis added "Maybe god created an ape, who doesn't like to think he's an ape."

12 10 4 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

13 11 5 “‘Creation science’ has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false.” Stephen Jay Gould

14 11 5 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 Disraeli

16 6 1 Biologically the species is the accumulation of the experiments of all its successful individuals since the beginning. H. G. Wells

17 5 0 “Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory ..." Stephen Jay Gould

18 8 4 Two million years from now the scientists can start a row by claming that the creatures of that period descended from us.

19 7 4 Our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud, by teaching evolution as fact. Tom DeLay

22 5 3 I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey. Mark Twain

23 4 2 ... each with its own beauty, and each with a story to tell. Stephen Jay Gould

24 4 2 Evolution has developed man to such a high degree that he builds zoos to keep his ancestors in cages.

25 3 1 “Humans arose ... as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness.” Stephen Jay Gould

not on the list? add item #52 List Rules: Must be a famous or well-known quote. Vote for the evolution sayings that strongly resonate with you, and downvote any you didn't like.