Richard Dawkins Quotes - Page 27

Quotes about:

• Many people want to send their children to faith schools because they get good exam results, but they're not foolish enough to believe that it's because of faith that they get good exam results.

  Richard Dawkins

  Children, Believe, School

  12 Copy quote

• If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies ... are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention ... The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Evil, Design

  4 Copy quote

• If you don't know anything about computers, just remember that they are machines that do exactly what you tell them but often surprise you in the result.

  Richard Dawkins

  Machines, Remember, Computer

  Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.59, W. W. Norton & Company

  4 Copy quote

• The obvious objections to the execution of Saddam Hussein are valid and well aired. His death will provoke violent strife between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and between Iraqis in general and the American occupation forces.

  Richard Dawkins

  Hussein, Occupation, Execution

  "Executing Saddam Hussein was an Act of Vandalism" by Richard Dawkins, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 3, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.

  Richard Dawkins

  Names, Long, Survival

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.41, Oxford University Press

  8 Copy quote

• I don't feel depressed. I feel elated.

  Richard Dawkins

  Feels

  4 Copy quote

• I am not advocating a morality based on evolution.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religion, Atheism, Morality

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene”, p.3, Oxford University Press

  10 Copy quote

• I was brought up in a family which valued natural history. Both my parents knew the names of all the British wildflowers, so as we went walking the country, I was constantly being exposed to a natural history sort of knowledge.

  Richard Dawkins

  Country, Names, Parent

  4 Copy quote

• Bereavement is terrible, of course. And when somebody you love dies, it's a time for reflection, a time for memory, a time for regret.

  Richard Dawkins

  Memories, Regret, Grief

  "Dawkins: Evolution Is ‘Not A Controversial Issue’". CNN Interview, link.kplr11.com. September 7, 2012.

  18 Copy quote

• My decision to be a scientist was a bit of a drift really, more or less by default.

  Richard Dawkins

  Decision, Scientist, Default

  7 Copy quote

• I was confirmed at my prep school at the age of 13.

  Richard Dawkins

  Birthday, School, Age

  4 Copy quote

• I love romantic poetry.

  Richard Dawkins

  Romantic Love, Romantic Poetry

  "Darwin's child" by Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. February 10, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

• Bertrand Russell used a hypothetical teapot in orbit about Mars for the same didactic purpose. You have to be agnostic about the teapot, but that doesn't mean you treat the likelihood of its existence as being on all fours with its non-existence.

  Richard Dawkins

  Mean, Atheism, Orbit

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.

  Richard Dawkins

  Christian, Want, Our Society

  "Dawkins: I'm a Cultural Christian". news.bbc.co.uk. December 10, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• I'm fond of science fiction. But not all science fiction. I like science fiction where there's a scientific lesson, for example - when the science fiction book changes one thing but leaves the rest of science intact and explores the consequences of that. That's actually very valuable.

  Richard Dawkins

  Book, Example, Fiction

  "Richard Dawkins Keeps Making New Enemies". Interview with Isaac Chotiner, newrepublic.com. October 29, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• The cynic about human nature might say that religious morality is an effective way of keeping people in line. The threat of hell, the reward of heaven, but the rules of the holy books are out of date and often barbaric.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Book, People

  4 Copy quote

• Time and again, my sociobiological colleagues have upbraided me as a turncoat, because I will not agree with them that the ultimate criterion for the success of a meme must be its contribution to Darwinian "fitness". At bottom, they insist, a "good meme" spreads because brains are receptive to it, and the receptiveness of brains is ultimately shaped by (genetic) natural selection.

  Richard Dawkins

  Brain, Natural, Criteria

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene”, p.167, Oxford University Press

  4 Copy quote

• Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivasection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! The only reason we can be comfortable with such a double standard is that the intermediates between humans and chimps are all dead.

  Richard Dawkins

  Christian, Attitude, Intelligent

  "The Blind Watchmaker". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1986.

  7 Copy quote

• You can't imagine how gratifying it is to have a reader come up to you and say, 'You changed my life.'

  Richard Dawkins

  Up To You, Imagine, You Changed

  4 Copy quote

• In the beginning was simplicity.

  Richard Dawkins

  Simplicity

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.34, Oxford University Press

  4 Copy quote

• Reductionism is a dirty word, and a kind of 'holistier than thou' self-righteousness has become fashionable.

  Richard Dawkins

  Dirty, Self, Kind

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene”, p.172, Oxford University Press

  8 Copy quote

• Any entity capable of intelligently designing something as improbable as Dutchman's Pipe (or a universe) would have to be even more improbable than a Dutchman's Pipe. Far from terminating the vicious regress, God aggravates it with a vengeance.

  Richard Dawkins

  Design, Vengeance, Vicious

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.146, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747

  Richard Dawkins

  Boeing, Designer, Entity

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.138, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• I'm pretty sure there is some genetic component towards intelligence.

  Richard Dawkins

  Components

  4 Copy quote

• We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us - through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology - that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.

  Richard Dawkins

  Technology, Space, Brain

  Richard Dawkins (1995). “River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life”, Basic Books (AZ)

  7 Copy quote

Page 27 of 32

First

← Prev

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin