Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
Charles DarwinRead
Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.
Interpretation
Humans often make choices based on selfish interests, while nature acts with the broader benefit of life in mind.
In this quote, Charles Darwin highlights the contrast between human decision-making and the natural world's processes. While humans tend to prioritize their own needs and desires, nature operates with a more holistic approach that ensures the survival and welfare of all living beings. This reflects a philosophical perspective on the differences in how humans and nature fulfill their roles in the ecosystem.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about environmental conservation.
Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science....It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.
We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm--a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven.
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps
Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.
When you are eighty years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices.
I have been accused of having believed when I wrote Sex and Temperament that there are no sex differences... This, many readers felt, was too much. It was too pretty. I must have found what I was looking for. But this misconception comes from a lack of understanding of what anthropology means, of the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder, that which one would not have been able to guess.
If error is corrected whenever it is recognized as such, the path of error is the path of truth.
Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.
Selfishness is not living your life as you wish to live it. Selfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you wish them to.
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