Erasmus Darwin Quotes

#1. Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form: Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars and shines, another and the same.

Erasmus Darwin

#2. The mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first.

Erasmus Darwin

#3. Soon shall thy arm, UNCONQUER'D STEAM! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the fields of air.

Erasmus Darwin

#4. Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!' and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!

Erasmus Darwin

#5. And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.

Erasmus Darwin

#6. No radiant pearl, which crested Fortune wears, No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's wars. Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn, Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn, Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.

Erasmus Darwin

#7. To respect the cat is the beginning of the aesthetic sense.

Erasmus Darwin

#8. Opium is the only drug to' be rely'd on-all the boasted nostrums only take up time, and as the disease [is] often of short duration, or of small quantity, they have gain'd credit which they do not deserve.

Erasmus Darwin

#9. The great CREATOR of all things has infinitely diversified the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on the features of nature, that demonstrates to us, that the whole is one family of one parent.

Erasmus Darwin

#10. In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling.

Erasmus Darwin

#11. In fact, Darwin's own grandfather anticipated the central tenet of Lamarckism by some seven years: "All animals undergo perpetual transformations; which are in part produced by their own exertions ... and many of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to their posterity."

Erasmus Darwin

#12. E canchis amnia.
Everything from shells.

Erasmus Darwin

#13. A fool, Mr, Edgeworth, is one who has never made an experiment.

Erasmus Darwin

#14. We hence acquire this sublime and interesting idea; that all the calcareous mountains in the world, and all the strata of clay, coal, marl, sand, and iron, which are incumbent on them, are MONUMENTS OF THE PAST FELICITY OF ORGANIZED NATURE!

Erasmus Darwin

#15. [Retirement] is a dangerous experiment, and generally ends in either drunkenness or hypochrondriacism.

Erasmus Darwin

#16. It is often hazardous to marry an heiress, as she is not unfrequently the last of a diseased family.

Erasmus Darwin

#17. The hypochondriac disease consists in indigestion and consequent flatulency, with anxiety or want of pleasurable sensation.

Erasmus Darwin

#18. A fool is a man who never tried an experiment in his life.

Erasmus Darwin

#19. I much condole with you on your late loss ... pains and diseases of the mind are only cured by Forgetfulness;
Reason but skins the wound, which is perpetually liable to fester again.

Erasmus Darwin

#20. Life is a forced state! I am surprized that we live, rather than that our friends die.

Erasmus Darwin