Haeckel Quotes

As our mother earth is a mere speck in the sunbeam in the illimitable universe, so man himself is but a tiny grain of protoplasm in the perishable framework of organic nature. [This] clearly indicates the true place of man in nature, but it dissipates the prevalent illusion of man's supreme importance and the arrogance with which he sets himself apart from the illimitable universe and exalts himself to the position of its most valuable element. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Nothing is constant but change! All existence is a perpetual flux of "being and becoming!" That is the broad lesson of the evolution of the world. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Haekel's reasoning is simple: humans are nature, they are part of, and a result of, evolution. Our actions and our thoughts are products of this evolution. Accordingly, when humans come to know something, ultimately it reveals their own nature. Our knowledge
which has developed in and is subject to the laws of nature
is in itself nature (and according to Haeckel, nothing more.) The draftsman, his sensory organs, his motor activity, are results of a development with which, in the end, nature merely represents itself. ~ Ernst Haeckel

The word ecology, coined by the German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel (initially as oecology) in 1866. derives from the Greek oikos, "referring originally to the family household and its daily operations and maintenance." The term ecology is therefore intended to refer to the study of the conditions of existence that pertain to, and the interactions between, all the entities that make up our larger, cosmic household here upon earth. ~ Warwick Fox

I am speaking, as I know it is rude to do, of the Social Darwinists, the eugenicists, the Imperialists, the Scientific Socialists who showed such firmness in reshaping civilization in Eastern Europe, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere, and, yes, of the Nazis. Darwin influenced the nationalist writer Heinrich von Treitschke and the biologist Ernst Haeckel, who influenced Hitler and also the milieu in which he flourished. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Mental differences between the lowest men and the animals are less than those between the lowest and the highest man. ~ Ernst Haeckel

The real cause of personal existence is not the favor of the Almighty, but the sexual love of one's earthly parents. ~ Ernst Haeckel

The ancestors of the higher animals must be regarded as one-celled beings, similar to the Amoebae which at the present day occur in our rivers, pools, and lakes. The incontrovertible fact that each human individual develops from an egg, which, in common with those of all animals, is a simple cell, most clearly proves that the most remote ancestors of man were primordial animals of this sort, of a form equivalent to a simple cell. When, therefore, the theory of the animal descent of man is condemned as a 'horrible, shocking, and immoral' doctrine, tho unalterable fact, which can be proved at any moment under the microscope, that the human egg is a simple cell, which is in no way different to those of other mammals, must equally be pronounced 'horrible, shocking, and immoral. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Man is not above nature, but in nature. ~ Ernst Haeckel

By ecology we understand the total science of the connections of the organism to the surrounding external world. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Where faith commences, science ends. Both these arts of the human mind must be strictly kept apart from each other. Faith has its origin in the poetic imagination; knowledge, on the other hand, originates in the reasoning intelligence of man. Science has to pluck the blessed fruits from the tree of knowledge, unconcerned whether these conquests trench upon the poetical imaginings of faith or not. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Phylogeny and ontogeny are, therefore, the two coordinated branches of morphology. Phylogeny is the developmental history [Entwickelungsgeschichte] of the abstract, genealogical individual; ontogeny, on the other hand, is the developmental history of the concrete, morphological individual. ~ Ernst Haeckel

The succession of individuals, connected by reproduction and belonging to a species, makes it possible for the specific form itself to last for ages. In the end, however, the species is temporary; it has no "eternal life." After existing for a certain period, it either dies or is converted by modification into other forms. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Natural selection rendered evolution scientifically intelligible: it was this more than anything else which convinced professional biologists like Sir Joseph Hooker, T. H. Huxley and Ernst Haeckel. ~ Charles Darwin

In the post-enlightenment Europe of the 19th century the highest authority was no longer the Church. Instead it was science. Thus was born racial anti-Semitism, based on two disciplines regarded as science in their day - the 'scientific study of race' and the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel. ~ Jonathan Sacks

Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim - one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius.
The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.
We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

Among the Spartans all newly born children were subject to a careful examination or selection. All those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Man is not distinguished from [the animals] by a special kind of soul, or by any peculiar and exclusive psychic function, but only by a higher degree of psychic activity, a superior stage of development. ~ Ernst Haeckel

The cell never acts; it reacts. ~ Ernst Haeckel

An irrefutable proof that such single-celled primaeval animals really existed as the direct ancestors of Man, is furnished according to the fundamental law of biogeny by the fact that the human egg is nothing more than a simple cell. ~ Ernst Haeckel

We are compelled by reflection to recognize that God is not to be placed against the material world [as in Christianity], but must be placed as a 'divine power' or 'moving spirit' within the cosmos itself ... All the wonderful phenomena of nature around us, organic as well as inorganic, are only various products of one and the same original force. ~ Ernst Haeckel

There is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European war' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Civilisation and the life of nations are governed by the same laws as prevail throughout nature and organic life. ~ Ernst Haeckel