Modification Quotes - Page 3

• Plants, in a state of nature, are always warring with one another, contending for the monopoly of the soil,-the stronger ejecting the weaker,-the more vigorous overgrowing and killing the more delicate. Every modification of climate, every disturbance of the soil, every interference with the existing vegetation of an area, favours some species at the expense of others.

  Joseph Dalton Hooker

  Science, Stronger, Climate

  Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Thomson (1855). “Introductory essay to the Flora Indica: including preliminary observations on the study of Indian botany; a summary of the labours of Indian botanists; a sketch of the meteorology of India; outlines of the physical geography and botany of the provinces of India: With 2 Maps. By J. D. Hooker and Thomas Thomson. Reprinted from the "Flora Indica"”, p.41

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• All organs of an animal form a single system, the parts of which hang together, and act and re-act upon one another; and no modifications can appear in one part without bringing about corresponding modifications in all the rest.

  Georges Cuvier

  Animal, Together, Form

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• Men of genius supply the substance of history, while the mass of men are but the critical filter, the limiting, slackening, passive force needed for the modification of ideas supplied by genius.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Men, Ideas, Filters

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• The real cause of the great upheavals which precede changes of civilisations, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Arabian Empire, is a profound modification in the ideas of the peoples .... The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought .... The present epoch is one of these critical moments in which the thought of mankind is undergoing a process of transformation.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Real, Fall, Memorable

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• Genetic modification has many different areas, for example in medicine, and Britain is at the leading edge of this new technology. I don't know, but people tell me, it could indeed by the leading science of the 21st century. All I say to people is: 'Just keep an open mind and let us proceed according to genuine scientific evidence.'

  Tony Blair

  Technology, Medicine, People

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• It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Errors, Perfection

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2004). “Evolution And Ethics”, p.247, 1st World Publishing

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• We are completely unaware of our true nature because we identify ourselves with our body, our emotions and our thoughts, thus losing sight of our unchanging centre, which is pure consciousness. When we return to our true nature, our thoughts and perceptions no longer appear as modifications of a single substance, they come into being and subside like waves of the ocean.

  Jean Klein

  Spiritual, Ocean, Sight

  Jean Klein (2015). “Be Who You Are”, p.16, New Harbinger Publications

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• All the acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals, through the influence of the environment in which their race has long been placed, and hence through the influence of the predominant use or permanent disuse of any organ; all these are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise, provided that the acquired modifications are common to both sexes, or at least to the individuals which produce the young.

  Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

  Sex, Loss, Science

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• The succession of individuals, connected by reproduction and belonging to a species, makes it possible for the specific form itself to last for ages. In the end, however, the species is temporary; it has no "eternal life." After existing for a certain period, it either dies or is converted by modification into other forms.

  Ernst Haeckel

  Life, Science, Age

  Ernst Haeckel (1904). “Wonders of life”

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• ... on these expanded membranes [butterfly wings] Nature writes, as on a tablet, the story of the modifications of species, so truly do all changes of the organisation register themselves thereon. Moreover, the same colour-patterns of the wings generally show, with great regularity, the degrees of blood-relationship of the species. As the laws of nature must be the same for all beings, the conclusions furnished by this group of insects must be applicable to the whole world.

  Henry Walter Bates

  Nature, Writing, Butterfly

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• In this century, not only has science changed the world faster than ever, but in new and different ways. Targeted drugs, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, perhaps even implants into our brains - may change human beings themselves.

  Martin Rees

  Technology, Drug, Brain

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• Exercising the right of occasional suppression and slight modification, it is truly absurd to see how plastic a limited number of observations become, in the hands of men with preconceived ideas.

  Francis Galton

  Exercise, Science, Men

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• I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.

  Charles Darwin

  Thinking, Competition, Suffering

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.3831, Delphi Classics

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• Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling... When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience.

  Edmund Burke

  Pain, Ideas, Giving

  "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful". Treatise by Edmund Burke, www.bartleby.com. 1757.

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• If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.

  Charles Darwin

  Theory Of Evolution, Creation Science, Evolution Of Man

  Charles Darwin (2003). “On the Origin of Species”, p.213, Broadview Press

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• Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Miracle, World, Admiration

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1845). “Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments”, p.55

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• I don't think we need to extend unemployment any further without paying for it, and without making some modifications such as turning it into a loan at some point. It then encourages people to go back to work.

  Jim DeMint

  Thinking, People, Unemployment

  "DeMint To Oppose 'the Deal'". "The Hugh Hewitt Show" with Hugh Hewitt, www.hughhewitt.com. December 7, 2010.

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• Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.

  Brian Eno

  Smart, Thinking, Self

  "Pushing Back the Limits of Speech and Music". Interview with Ben Sisario, www.nytimes.com. July 4, 2011.

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• No one knows what the nongenetic causes of individuality are. Perhaps people are shaped by modifications of genes that take place after conception, or by haphazard fluctuations in the chemical soup in the womb or the wiring up of the brain or the expression of the genes themselves.

  Steven Pinker

  Expression, People, Individuality

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• If only shame were a reliable engine for behavior modification. All it does is make me feel bad, which inspires me to bust open a bag of cheese popcorn, which then makes me feel crappy about my weight.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Inspire, Popcorn, Bags

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• I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.

  Bill Watterson

  Behavior, Calvin And Hobbes Friendship, Maxims

  "Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons". Book by Bill Watterson, April 1992.

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• It's quite possible we may actually be looking at some kind of super-sanity here. A brilliant new modification of human perception, more suited to urban life at the end of the twentieth century...He creates himself each day. He sees himself as the lord of misrule and the world as a theatre of the absurd.

  Grant Morrison

  Perception, Theatre, May

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• Very much indeed of what we call moral education is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion.

  H. G. Wells

  Religious, Sacrifice, Self

  H. G. Wells (2016). “H. G. WELLS Ultimate Collection: 120+ Science Fiction Classics, Novels & Stories; Including Scientific, Political and Historical Works: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, Modern Utopia, A Short History of the World, What Is Coming, The Story of the Last Trump…”, p.2683, e-artnow

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• Because if I smashed anything, Team Jaiden would just get me into a behavior modification program, or maybe some doctor would put be on drugs for my ADD or bipolarism or depression or whatever they're calling being alive and feeling royally screwed these days.

  Stefan Petrucha

  Team, Doctors, Feelings

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• "Pieces" almost always appear 'as parts' in whole processes. ... To sever a "'part" from the organized whole in which it occurs-whether it itself be a subsidiary whole or an "element"-is a very real process usually involving alterations in that "part". Modifications of a part frequently involve changes elsewhere in the whole itself. Nor is the nature of these alterations arbitrary, for they too are determined by whole-conditions.

  Max Wertheimer

  Change, Nature, Real

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