Top 16 Quotes & Sayings by Richard Owen

But, as we have before been led to remark, most of Mr. Darwin's statements elude, by their vagueness and incompleteness, the test of Natural History facts.

No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin.

Every step in the progress of this study has tended to obliterate the technical barriers by which logicians have sought to separate the inquiries relating to the several parts of man's nature.

That the variability of an organism to a certain extent is a constant and certain condition of life we admit, otherwise there would be no distinguishable individuals of a species.

The relationship between a Russian and a bottle of vodka is almost mystical.

The powers, aspirations, and mission of man are such as to raise the study of his origin and nature, inevitably and by the very necessity of the case, from the mere physiological to the psychological stage of scientific operations.

Manifold subsequent experience has led to a truer appreciation and a more moderate estimate of the importance of the dependence of one living being upon another.

Cuvier had preceded Lamarck in specifying the kinds and degrees of variation, which his own observations and critical judgment of the reports of others led him to admit.

Mr. Darwin contributes some striking and ingenious instances of the way in which the principle partially affects the chain, or rather network of life, even to the total obliteration of certain meshes.

Mr. Darwin refers to the multitude of the individual of every species, which, from one cause or another, perish either before, or soon after attaining maturity.

The steam-engine in its manifold applications, the crime-decreasing gas-lamp, the lightning conductor, the electric telegraph, the law of storms and rules for the mariner's guidance in them, the power of rendering surgical operations painless, the measures for preserving public health, and for preventing or mitigating epidemics,-such are among the more important practical results of pure scientific research, with which mankind have been blessed and States enriched.

The laws of Coexistence;-the adaptation of structure to function; and to a certain extent the elucidation of natural affinities may be legitimately founded upon the examination of fully developed species;-But to obtain an insight into the laws of development,-the signification or bedeutung, of the parts of an animal body demands a patient examination of the successive stages of their development, in every group of Animals.

Rapid innovation is the cure for the ills we face, but because innovation is difficult and susceptible to failure, we might need to rethink the way we approach innovation and how we drive it through our companies.

The combination of such characters, some, as the sacral ones, altogether peculiar among Reptiles, others borrowed, as it were, from groups now distinct from each other, and all manifested by creatures far surpassing in size the largest of existing reptiles, will, it is presumed, be deemed sufficient ground for establishing a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles, for which I would propose the name of Dinosauria.

Homologue. The same organ in different animals under every variety of form and function.

Analogue. A part or organ in one animal which has the same function as another part or organ in a different animal.