Francis Galton

“I have no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.”

“{{cite journal|title=Number of Strokes of the Brush in a Picture (Letter to the Editor)|journal=Nature|year=1905|issue=1861|date=June 29, 1905|volume=72|page=198|doi=10.1038/072198a0}}”

“The demand for exceptional ability, when combined with energy and good character, is so great that a lad who is gifted with them is hardly more likely to remain over looked than a bird’s nest in the playground of a school.”

“I do not plead guilty to a shallow view of human nature, when I propose to apply, as it were, a foot-rule to its heights and depths.”

“What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.”

“[T]though scientific travellers are comparatively few, yet out of their ranks a large proportion of the leaders in all branches of science has been supplied. It is one of the most grateful results of a journey to the young traveller to find himself admitted, on the ground of his having so much of special interest to relate, into the society of men with whose names he had long been familiar, and whom he had reverenced as his heroes.”

“One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.”

“Count wherever you can.”