Charles Darwin

Naturalist, author of On the Origin of Species, 1809–1882. Explained quotes and 1 wrongly credited to them.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Often credited to Charles Darwin · 1963

✕ Misattributed

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Often credited to Charles Darwin · Leon C. Megginson, speech to the Southwestern Social Science Association · 1963

A business professor's 1963 summary of Darwin's ideas, applied to management. It was later shortened and credited to Darwin himself.

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About Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist whose five-year voyage on HMS Beagle in the 1830s led him to the theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species in 1859. The book transformed biology and remains the foundation of the life sciences.

Darwin’s books and his thousands of letters are fully digitized, which makes it easy to show that several famous “Darwin quotes,” including the one about adaptability, are not his.

More lines by Darwin

Short quotes checked against their sources.

“There is grandeur in this view of life... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
On the Origin of Species, final sentence, 1859