Alfred Russel Wallace Quotes & Sayings

“I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions.”

“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.”

“Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time.”

“In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“To the mass of mankind religion of some kind is a necessity.”