Tag Archives: quote

It is not the strongest of the species that survives

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

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptable to change Charles DarwinThis quotation is one of the most popular and misattributed phrases on the internet — most people think it’s something Charles Darwin wrote. He didn’t. It’s from Leon Megginson, a Louisiana professor of business management.

To encourage proper attribution, I thought I’d seed the internet with three images that give Dr Megginson his credit. The hope is that these images might eventually get included in Google search results when people are searching for pre-made slides that have the quote.

It is not the strongest species that surviveThe first version features a Galapagos marine iguana with its mouth open, as if it was saying something. It’s actually yawning, so use cautiously if you are a boring speaker.

The second slide is a photograph of Leon C. Megginson himself, looking confident in front of chalkboard.

The final image is a photograph of Charles Darwin, the man who clearly inspired Megginson.

It is not the strongest of the species that survivesAs proof of why we need to get the word out about the quote’s source, here’s a feed showing how all the recent usage on Twitter.:

Most of the tweets are from nutritionists, motivational speakers, and business management types.

By the way, the misattribution exists even among people who should know better. E.g., the quote is found on the wall of the Charles Darwin Foundation’s gift shop, and on the floor of the California Academy of Science.

If you need an actual quote from Darwin, there are hundreds of thousands to choose from. Just browse Darwin Online for all his books (~42 of them!), articles (~246), letters, and notebooks. There’s also the Darwin Correspondence Project.

Darwin and the “strongest of the species” quotation

This is old news, but hundreds of yearly posts on Twitter suggest not everyone on the planet got the memo, so I want to make another post about this quote:

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

The sentences are actually from Leon Megginson (details), a professor of marketing at Louisiana State University who died in 2010. But people love to attribute it to Darwin. E.g., as shown in the photograph below from the California Academy of Sciences.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives

If you give motivational seminars and need the quotation on a slide, here you go.