Top Erasmus Darwin Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Erasmus Darwin Biography

Erasmus Darwin (12 December 1731 – 18 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor and poet.

Read about Erasmus Darwin in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Erasmus Darwin Quotes

Another thing very injurious to the child is the tying and cutting of the navel string too soon, which should always be left till the child has not only repeatedly breathed but till all pulsation in the cord ceases. As otherwise the child is much weaker than it ought to be, a part of the blood being left in the placenta which ought to have been in the child and at the same time the placenta does not so naturally collapse, and withdraw itself from the sides of the uterus, and is not therefore removed with so much safety and certainty.

Blood, Children, Collapse, Cutting, Safety, Tying

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

Life, Live, Science, State, States, Surprized

From the sexual, or amatorial, generation of plants new varieties, or improvements, are frequently obtained; as many of the young plants from seeds are dissimilar to the parent, and some of them superior to the parent in the qualities we wish to possess. . . Sexual reproduction is the chef d'oeuvre, the master-piece of nature.

Dissimilar, Parent, Qualities, Science, Wish

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

Earth, Earths, Issues, Round, Science, Sun

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.

Certain, Hands, Infinitely, Nature, Science, Time

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!

Eat, Expressed, Law, Nature, Science

So the horns of the stag are sharp to offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or receiving the thrusts of horns similar to his own, and have therefore been formed for the purpose of combating other stags for the exclusive possession of the females; who are observed, like the ladies in the times of chivalry, to attend to the car of the victor. The final cause of this contest amongst the males seems to be, that the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved.

Animal, Car, Receiving, Sharp, Survival

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 field of air.

Air, Barge, Car, Drag, Wings

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

Edgeworth, Experiment, Fool, Made, Science

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

Aesthetic, Cat, Cat Love, Purring Cats, Respect, Sense

Hence when a person is in great pain, the cause of which he cannot remove, he sets his teeth firmly together, or bites some substance between them with great vehemence, as another mode of violent exertion to produce a temporary relief. Thus we have the proverb where no help can be has in pain, 'to grin and abide;' and the tortures of hell are said to be attended with 'gnashing of teeth. 'Describing a suggestion of the origin of the grin in the present form of a proverb, 'to grin and bear it. '

Bites, Causes, Pain, Temporary, Together

Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new animal, but it is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent; since a part of the embryon-animal is, or was, a part of the parent; and therefore in strict language it cannot be said to be entirely new at the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of the parent-system. (1794)

Animal, Imperfection, Owing, Parent, Strict, Truth

By firm immutable immortal laws Impress'd on Nature by the GREAT FIRST CAUSE, Say, MUSE! how rose from elemental strife Organic forms, and kindled into life; How Love and Sympathy with potent charm Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm; Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains, And bind Society in golden chains.

Charm, Disarm, Heart, Nature, Pain, Pleasures

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

Dangerous, Drunkenness, Ends, Hypochrondriacism, Retirement

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!

Ideas, Incumbent, Marl, Organized, Past, Science

I am sorry the infernal Divinities, who visit mankind with diseases, and are therefore at perpetual war with Doctors, should have prevented my seeing all you great Men at Soho to-day-Lord! what inventions, what wit, what rhetoric, metaphysical, mechanical and pyrotecnical, will be on the wing, bandy'd like a shuttlecock from one to another of your troop of philosophers! while poor I, I by myself I, imprizon'd in a post chaise, am joggled, and jostled, and bump'd, and bruised along the King's high road, to make war upon a pox or a fever!

Kings, Like, Men, Pyrotecnical, Sorry, War

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.

Condole, Fester, Loss, Mind, Pain, Wound

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. "

Animal, Grandfather, Perpetual, Produced, Propensities, Years

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.

Flames, Lifts, Shines, Shining, Wings, Wreck

No radiant pearl which crested Fortune wears, No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's ears, 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.

Arch, Beauty, Bright, Gild, Night, Stars

1