Species Quotes - Page 16

• At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a 'tendency to progression', 'adaptations from the slow willing of animals', &c! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends.

  Charles Darwin

  Mean, Simple, Thinking

  Charles Darwin (1896). “Charles Darwin's Works: The life and letters of Charles Darwin... ed. by his son, Francis Darwin. 2v”

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• When the views entertained in this volume on the origin of species, or when analogous views are generally admitted, we can dimly forsee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.

  Charles Darwin

  Views, Revolution, Natural

  Charles Darwin (2007). “On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.303, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Men and women are brothers and sisters; they are not of different species; and what need be obtained to know both, but to allow for different modes of education, for situation and constitution, or perhaps I should rather say, for habits, whether good or bad.

  Samuel Richardson

  Brother, Men, Imagination

  Samuel Richardson, Sir Richard Phillips (1804). “The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, Author of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison: Selected from the Original Manuscripts, Bequeathed by Him to His Family, to which are Prefixed, a Biographical Account of that Author, and Observations on His Writings”, p.263

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• Once women invented farming, and began to keep and breed animals, they discovered the crucial function of the rooster and the henhouse. Fathers suddenly gained a function, and could do what only women had been able to do for all those millions of years--point at a child and say, "That is my son," "That is my daughter." Patriarchy quickly followed, beginning about five thousand years ago; a very short time in the development of our species, but covering all of recorded history.

  Frank Pittman

  Daughter, Children, Father

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• Can it then be doubted, but that God, who is infinitely fine Spirit, and withal intelligent, can make and change all species and kind of body as he pleaseth? But I dare not say, that this is the way by which God Almighty worketh, because it is past my apprehension: yet it serves very well to demonstrate, that the omnipotence of God implieth no contradiction.

  Thomas Hobbes

  God, Intelligent, Past

  Thomas Hobbes (2010). “Leviathan, Parts I and II - Revised Edition”, p.392, Broadview Press

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• The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Views

  'Four Dissertations' (1757) 'The Natural History of Religion' sect. 15

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• I think an erotics of place may be one of the reasons why environmentalists are seen as subversive. There is a backlash now:... [ellipsis in source] take all the regulations away; weaken existing legislation; the endangered species act is too severe, too restrictive; let there be carte blanche for real-estate developers. Because if we really have to confront wildness, solitude, and serenity, both the fierceness and compassionate nature of the land, then we ultimately have to confront it in ourselves, and it's easier to be numb, to be distracted, to be disengaged.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Nature, Real, Thinking

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• But we must here state that we should not see anything if there were a vacuum. But this would not be due to some nature hindering species, and resisting it, but because of the lack of a nature suitable for the multiplication of species; for species is a natural thing, and therefore needs a natural medium; but in a vacuum nature does not exist.

  Roger Bacon

  Vacuums, Doe, Needs

  Roger Bacon (2016). “Opus Majus, Volumes 1 and 2”, p.485, University of Pennsylvania Press

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• Building intelligent machines can teach us about our minds - about who we are - and those lessons will make our world a better place. To win that knowledge, though, our species will have to trade in another piece of its vanity.

  Astro Teller

  Science, Intelligent, Winning

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• Religion in the public square is becoming an endangered species.

  Mathew Staver

  Christian, Religious, Squares

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• Prostitution is the most hideous of the afflictions produced by the unequal distribution of the world's goods; this infamy stigmatizes the human species and bears witness against the social organization far more than does crime.

  Flora Tristan

  Organization, Bears, Doe

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• Parasites are not only incredibly diverse; they are also incredibly successful. There are parasitic stretches of DNA in your own genes, some of which are called retrotransposons. Many of the parasitic stretches were originally viruses that entered our DNA. Most of them don't do us any harm. They just copy and insert themselves in other parts of our DNA, basically replicating themselves. Sometimes they hop into other species and replicate themselves in a new host. According to one estimate, roughly one-third to one-half of all human DNA is basically parasitic.

  Carl Zimmer

  Successful, Dna, Half

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• In one way, traveling has narrowed my mind. What I have discovered is something very ordinary and unexciting, which is that humans are the same everywhere and that the degree of variation between members of our species is very slight. This is of course an encouraging finding; it helps arm you against news programs back home that show seething or abject masses of either fanatical or torpid people. In another way it is a depressing finding; the sorts of things that make people quarrel and make them stupid are the same everywhere.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Depressing, Stupid, Home

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• When you look at what is happening to our world-and it is hard to look at what's happening to our water, our air, our trees, our fellow species-it becomes clear that unless you have some roots in a spiritual practice that holds life sacred and encourages joyful communion with all your fellow beings, facing the enormous challenges ahead becomes nearly impossible.

  Joanna Macy

  Spiritual, Practice, Roots

  Joanna Macy (2013). “Greening of the Self”, p.5, Parallax Press

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• Not only does every animal live at the expense of some other animal or plant, but the very plants are at war.... The individuals of a species are like the crew of a foundered ship, and none but good swimmers have a chance of reaching the land.

  Thomas Huxley

  War, Animal, Land

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.18, Cambridge University Press

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• Man is taking over the forests and polluting the oceans, the animal species are threatened. I try to contribute as much as I can. We're really messing up our environment. I try to get people more aware of what's going on so that they can, even in a local way, try to prevent pollution to their lakes and rivers and prevent nuclear dumping in the oceans - it's bad enough that they're doing it in residential areas, but putting it in the ocean! Eventually it's going to pollute our food resources and, if the ocean dies, we're gone.

  Olivia Newton-John

  Ocean, Men, Animal

  Interview with George Christy, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 10, 2011.

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• Some of the best art occurs when people are oppressed. That's just what we do as a species when something shakes us up.

  Pharrell Williams

  Art, People, Shakes

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• Stories match the way our species thinks. Equally important, stories are something we share - everyone everywhere tells stories and oddly enough, in the same way. It all probably started around some campfire a million years ago.

  John Daly

  Thinking, Years, Important

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• (Gray) Davis said yesterday that he is going to fight like a Bengal tiger, which I believe is also an endangered species.

  Jay Leno

  Believe, Fighting, Yesterday

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• Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

  Herman Melville

  War, Sharks, Sea

  Herman Melville (2015). “Annotated Moby Dick or, the Whale with English Grammar Exercises: by Herman Melville (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, p.438, Powell Publications, LLC

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• Maybe we need to fall on the common-sense side of protecting these species, but continue harvesting wood products we all use and enjoy. We've got to be able to do both - protect water quality and species, as well as harvest trees.

  John Hancock

  Fall, Common Sense, Water

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• Honey, you [Michael Jackson] gotta pick a race first. All of a sudden you're a black man, then you're Diana Ross, now you're Audrey Hepburn. Then he's got the little beard going on. He's like Lord of the Rings, the entire cast. Michael's about to jump species.

  Robin Williams

  Men, Race, Black

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• Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Errors, Kind, Life Is

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2011). “The Will to Power”, p.379, Vintage

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• We are a species addicted to a stories.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Stories

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• Nature seemed to have adorned herself for our departure with a profusion of fringes and curls, mingled with the bright tints of flowers, reflected in the water. But we missed the white water-lily, which is the queen of river flowers, its reign being over for this season.... Many of this species inhabit our Concord water.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Queens, Flower

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU – The Man, The Philosopher & The Trailblazer (Illustrated): Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographical Books & Personal Letters (Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada…)”, p.37, e-artnow

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