30+ Alfred Russel Wallace Quotes (Natural Selection Theory)

Alfred Russel Wallace was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. He is best known for independently proposing a theory of evolution through natural selection which prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own theory. Wallace's paper on the subject was jointly presented with Darwin's at a meeting of the Linnean Society in London in 1858.

Top 10 Alfred Russel Wallace Quotes

1. In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found.
2. I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions.
3. In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.
4. The white men in our colonies are too frequently the savages
5. There is a tendency in nature to the continued progression of certain classes of varieties further and further from the original type.
6. If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations.
7. But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life.
8. To the mass of mankind religion of some kind is a necessity.
9. Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly.
10. To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look for one of those miracles which do not occur.

Alfred Russel Wallace Short Quotes

• What birds can have their bills more peculiarly formed than the ibis, the spoonbill, and the heron?
• Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time.
• I have since wandered among men of many races and many religions.

Alfred Russel Wallace Famous Quotes And Sayings

I spent, as you know, a year and a half in a clergyman's family and heard almost every Tuesday the very best, most earnest and most impressive preacher it has ever been my fortune to meet with, but it produced no effect whatever on my mind. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly. To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look for one of those miracles which do not occur. — Alfred Russel Wallace

It has been generally the custom of writers on natural history to take the habits and instincts of animals as the fixed point, and to consider their structure and organization as specially adapted to be in accordance with them. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race. — Alfred Russel Wallace

What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Mars, therefore, is not only uninhabited by intelligent beings such as Mr. Lowell postulates, but is absolutely uninhabitable. — Alfred Russel Wallace

To say that mind is a product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use words to which we can attach no clear conception. — Alfred Russel Wallace

In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge. — Alfred Russel Wallace

In one of my latest conversations with Darwin he expressed himself very gloomily on the future of humanity, on the ground that in our modern civilization natural selection had no play, and the fittest did not survive. Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most intelligent, and it is notorious that our population is more largely renewed in each generation from the lower than from the middle and upper classes. — Alfred Russel Wallace

The foregoing considerations lead us to the very important conclusion, that matter is essentially force, and nothing but force; that matter, as popularly understood, does not exist, and is, in fact, philosophically inconceivable. — Alfred Russel Wallace

There is, I conceive, no contradiction in believing that mind is at once the cause of matter and of the development of individualised human minds through the agency of matter. — Alfred Russel Wallace

I think I have fairly heard and fairly weighed the evidence on both sides, and I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths... I can see much to admire in all religions... But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth. — Alfred Russel Wallace

As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways. — Alfred Russel Wallace

On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associated with a spiritual body or soul, both of which are developed in and by means of a material organism. — Alfred Russel Wallace

I am decidedly of the opinion that in very many instances we can trace such a necessary connexion, especially among birds, and often with more complete success than in the case which I have here attempted to explain. — Alfred Russel Wallace

I hold with Henry George, that at the back of every great social evil will be found a great political wrong. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Life Lessons by Alfred Russel Wallace

1. Alfred Russel Wallace's work demonstrates the importance of curiosity and exploration in scientific discovery, as he was an avid naturalist and explorer who traveled extensively to observe and collect specimens.
2. His research and writings on evolution by natural selection were influential in the development of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
3. Alfred Russel Wallace's work also highlights the importance of collaboration and communication in scientific progress, as he actively sought out the opinions of other scientists and published his findings for the world to learn from.