The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘The Impossible Dream’ or ‘The Quest’ (1965 song from ‘Man of La Mancha’)
4.5 George Darley 1795-1846
O blest unfabled Incense Tree,
That burns in glorious Araby.
‘Nepenthe’ l. 147
4.6 Clarence Darrow 1857-1938
I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure—that is all that agnosticism
means.
Speech at the trial of John Thomas Scopes, 15 July 1925, in ‘The World’s Most Famous Court Trial’ (1925)
ch. 4
4.7 Charles Darwin 1809-82
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our
thoughts.
‘The Descent of Man’ (1871) ch. 4
A hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits.
‘The Descent of Man’ (1871) ch. 21 (on man’s probable ancestors)
Man with all his noble qualities...still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly
origin.
‘The Descent of Man’ (1871) closing words
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term
of Natural Selection.
‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) ch. 3
We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.
‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) ch. 3
The expression often used by Mr Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more
accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.
‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) ch. 3.
From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable
of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.
‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) ch. 3
What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and
horribly cruel works of nature!
Letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 July 1856
4.8 Erasmus Darwin 1731-1802
A fool...is a man who never tried an experiment in his life.
In a letter from Maria Edgeworth to Sophy Ruxton, 9 March 1792: F. V. Barry (ed.) ‘Maria Edgeworth:
Chosen Letters’ (1931)