Insects Quotes - Page 17

Politics /n/: from 'poly ticks', short for 'many small bloodsucking insects'.

Henry Spencer

Political, Democracy, Tick

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Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects.

E. O. Wilson

Science, Cutting, Numbers

"Naturally Good: A Behavioral History of Moral Development from Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson". Book by John Henry Morgan, 2005.

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Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world. The dragons are all dead and the lance grows rusty in the chimney corner. ... About the only sporting proposition that remains unimpaired by the relentless domestication of a once free-living human species is the war against those ferocious little fellow creatures, which lurk in dark corners and stalk us in the bodies of rats, mice and all kinds of domestic animals; which fly and crawl with the insects, and waylay us in our food and drink and even in our love

Hans Zinsser

War, Adventure, Science

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It has taken biologists some 230 years to identify and describe three quarters of a million insects; if there are indeed at least thirty million, as Erwin (Terry Erwin, the Smithsonian Institute) estimates, then, working as they have in the past, insect taxonomists have ten thousand years of employment ahead of them. Ghilean Prance, director of the Botanical Gardens in Kew, estimates that a complete list of plants in the Americas would occupy taxonomists for four centuries, again working at historical rates.

Richard Leakey

Taken, Past, Garden

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In the study of this membrane [the retina] I for the first time felt my faith in Darwinism (hypothesis of natural selection) weakened, being amazed and confounded by the supreme constructive ingenuity revealed not only in the retina and in the dioptric apparatus of the vertebrates but even in the meanest insect eye. ... I felt more profoundly than in any other subject of study the shuddering sensation of the unfathomable mystery of life.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Eye, Science, Research

Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1989). “Recollections of My Life”, p.576, MIT Press

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Silent Summer - a never-ending heat wave, devoid of birdsong, insect hum, and all the weird and wonderful living noises that subconsciously keep us company.

Mark Lynas

Summer, Noise, Heat

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Never to have seen anything but the temperate zone is to have lived on the fringe of the world. Between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer live the majority of all the plant species, the vast majority of the insects, most of the strange ... quadrupeds, all of the great and most of the poisonous snakes and large lizards, most of the brilliantly colored sea fishes, and the strangest and most gorgeously plumaged of the birds.

David Fairchild

Cancer, Science, Sea

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Winding her arms close around his neck, she closed her eyes. To be embraced, safe in a man's arms when she had never expected it to happen again, this would be enough.Time sheltered their embrace, enfolding them within a summer scented capsule that felt endless and theirs alone. The fragrance of grass and sunlight and nearby water sweetened each breath. Theirs was the music of birds ans the lazy buzz of insects and the beating of two hearts. Yes, she thought, she didn't need more. This would be enough.

Maggie Osborne

Summer, Eye, Heart

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Plant consciousness, insect consciousness, fish consciousness, all are related by one permanent element, which we may call the religious element inherent in all life, even in a flea: the sense of wonder. That is our sixth sense, and it is the natural religious sense.

D. H. Lawrence

Religious, Elements, May

'Hymns in a Man's Life'. Collected in Pheonix II: Uncollected, Unpublished and Other ProseWorks (1968).

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In my youth, I spent my time investigating insects.

Maria Sibylla Merian

Youth, My Time, Investigating

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Natural selection certainly operates. It explains how bacteria will gain antibiotic resistance; it will explain how insects get insecticide resistance, but it doesn't explain how you get bacteria or insects in the first place.

William A. Dembski

Antibiotics, Bacteria, Gains

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Today I am sure no one needs to be told that the more birds a yard can support, the fewer insects there will be to trouble the gardener the following year.

Thalassa Cruso

Years, Support, Bird

Thalassa Cruso (1990). “The Gardening Year”, Lyons Press

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Spray a book with insect spray, drop it in a bag, add some mothballs and seal it. Put it in another bag and seal it. Another. The packages piled up on the floor, each a book sealed in four plastic envelopes.

Larry Niven

Book, Add, Bags

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In my life outdoors, I've observed that animals of almost any variety will stand in a windy place rather than in a protected, windless area infested with biting insects. They would rather be annoyed by the wind than bitten.

Tim Cahill

Animal, Wind, Annoyed

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Insect politics, indifferent universe. Bang your head against the wall, but apathy is worse.

Don Henley

Wall, Bangs, Apathy

Song: Inside Job, Album: Inside Job, 2000

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Garden: One of a vast number of free outdoor restaurants operated by charity-minded amateurs in an effort to provide healthful, balanced meals for insects, birds and animals.

Henry Beard

Animal, Garden, Numbers

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Everything is a hero: A lighthouse which gives light to us; weeds that provide shelter to little insects; a water drop which quenches a thirsty ant! Everything that helps us to live is a hero!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

Weed, Hero, Light

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When we usually think of fears, in comics or in films, it's most often fears on a relatively superficial level: fear of murderous insects, of ghosts, of zombies, or even fear of dying.

Boaz Lavie

Thinking, Zombie, Dying

Source: www.avclub.com

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Every flower of the field, every fiber of a plant, every particle of an insect carries with it the impress of its Maker and can-if duly considered-read us lectures of ethics or divinity.

Sir Thomas Blount, 1st Baronet

Spiritual, Flower, Divinity

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Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called Life on a Little Known Planet. It's about insects. It will make you feel better.

David McCullough

Reading, Book, Feel Better

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I have drawn things since I was 6. All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting. At 73 I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90 I will enter into the secret of things. At 110, everything - every dot, every dash - will live. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age, I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.'

Hokusai

Writing, Animal, Men

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Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature - The rustling of leaves in the wind, Raindrops falling, The humming of an insect, The first birdsong at dawn.

Eckhart Tolle

Fall, Wind, Firsts

Eckhart Tolle (2010). “Stillness Speaks”, p.79, New World Library

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So, that was Nature's way. The mosquito felt pain and panic but the dragonfly knew nothing of cruelty. Humans would call it evil, the big dragonfly destroying the mosquito and ignoring the little insects suffering. Yet humans hated mosquitoes too, calling them vicious and bloodthirsty. All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.

John Marsden

Pain, Evil, Suffering

John Marsden (2011). “The Tomorrow Series: Tomorrow When the War Began”, p.153, Hachette UK

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In Alaska, the beaches are slumping so much, people are having to move houses. In Tuktoyaktuk, the land is starting to go under water. The glaciers are melting and the permafrost is melting. There are new species of birds and fish and insects showing up. The Arctic is a barometer for the health of the world. If you want to know how healthy the world is, come to the Arctic and feel its pulse.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier

Beach, Moving, Alaska

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Even today, when an Aboriginal mother notices the first stirrings of speech in her child, she lets it handle the "things" of that particular country: leaves, fruit, insects and so forth. "We give our children guns and computer games," Wendy said. "They gave their children the land."

Bruce Chatwin

Mother, Country, Children

"The Songlines". Book by Bruce Chatwin, 1987.

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