“Disinterested love for all living creatures, the most noble attribute of man.”
Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", page 105 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=118&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image <br class="br">The Descent of Man (1871)
Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", page 101 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=114&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image <br class="br">The Descent of Man (1871)
“Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.”
Charles Darwin book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Source: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter VII: "Instinct", page 244 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=262&itemID=F373&viewtype=image <br class="br">Source: The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
volume II, chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion", page 405 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=422&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image<br>(Closing paragraph of the book.) <br class="br">The Descent of Man (1871) <br class="br">Context: Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted powers — Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", pages 100-101 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=113&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image <br class="br">The Descent of Man (1871) <br class="br">Context: As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually through public opinion.
" Notebook N http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/vanWyhe_notebooks.html" (1838) page 36 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=25&itemID=CUL-DAR126.-&viewtype=text <br class="br">quoted in [Darwin's Religious Odyssey, 2002, William E., Phipps, Trinity Press International, 9781563383847, 32, http://books.google.com/books?id=0TA81BTW3dIC&pg=PA32] <br class="br">also quoted in On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection (1996) edited by Thomas F. Glick and David Kohn, page 81 <br class="br">Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements <br class="br">Source: Notebooks
Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)
Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 421 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=449&itemID=F391&viewtype=image, in the sixth (1872) edition
“Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.”
Source: The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)
Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 421 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=449&itemID=F391&viewtype=image, in the sixth (1872) edition <br class="br">Source: The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)
Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter VI: "Difficulties on Theory", page 189 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=207&itemID=F373&viewtype=image <br class="br">Source: The Origin of Species
“… for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.”
Source: The Origin of Species