Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress.
Source: In Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 1887.
-- Charles Darwin, (Feb 12 1809-1882), English naturalist, author; He expounded the theory of evolution through natural selection in Origin of the Species, 1859.