Species Quotes - Page 20

• I am interested and deeply curious about our need for a spiritual life, a life of greater meaning, and how we come to a more ethical view of life within our communities that is more inclusive than exclusive, one that is extended even beyond our own species.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Spiritual, Views, Community

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think about capitalism, consumerism, our consumptive nature as a species approaching the 21st century. I certainly don't have the answers.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Thinking, Answers, Century

  Terry Tempest Williams (2006). “A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams”, Utah State Univ Pr

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For a long time, science has gone in the direction of sort of putting people in their place. We learned that the sun doesn't revolve around the Earth, the Earth revolves around the sun; we learned that we're just another species, evolved, like all other species, so we're just another animal, really.

  Elizabeth Kolbert

  Animal, Long, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some of these species that are now no longer with us were killed off by a fungal disease that was moved around the planet by people.

  Elizabeth Kolbert

  People, Disease, Planets

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even a superficial glance is sufficient to show that all the innumerable forms in which the life-urge of Nature manifests itself are subject to a fundamental law - one may call it an iron law of Nature - which compels the various species to keep within the definite limits of their own life-forms when propagating and multiplying their kind.

  Adolf Hitler

  Law, Iron, Atheism

  Adolf Hitler (2016). “Mein Kampf: My Struggle: (Vol. I & Vol. II) - (Complete & Illustrated Edition)”, p.282, eKitap Projesi

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• But that Franklin trip changed me profoundly. As I believe wilderness experience changes everyone. Because it puts us in our place. The human place, which our species inhabited for most of its evolutionary life. That place that shaped our psyches and made us who we are. The place where nature is big and we are small.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Believe, Psych, Who We Are

  Geraldine Brooks (2011). “Boyer Lectures 2011: The Idea of Home”, p.12, HarperCollins Australia

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And at this moment in history, our core value happens to be the raw, aching truth of the human predicament. It may also be the only belief that can save us as a species. A species that will continue to find comfort and delight in the companionship of animals, the miracle of birds, the colours of the corals and the majesty of the forests. We are in it together, on this blue spinning marble in the cold and silent void. And we must act on that belief, if we are going to be able to continue to live a good life here, in this beautiful and fragile country, on this lovely planet, our only home.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Beautiful, Country, Good Life

  4 Copy quote

• Above all, we should question the consumer ethic, which uses up non-renewable resources, creates inequality and injustice, generates pollution, destroys other species and upsets the balance of nature. The consumer ethic not only defiles the environment by creating undesirable change in the biosphere but also corrupts the mind and body by defining pleasure in terms of ownership and absorption. Waste itself is a human concept; everything in nature is eventually used. If human beings carry on in their present ways, they will one day be recycled along with the dinosaurs.

  Peter Marshall

  Inspiring, Creating, Upset

  35 Copy quote

• Could it be that the atomic isolation of the husband and wife nucleus with an orbiting child or two is in fact a culturally imposed aberration for our species? As ill-suited to our evolved tendencies as corsets, chastity belts, and suits of armor? ...a distorted and distorting family structure inappropriate for our species?

  Christopher Ryan

  Children, Husband, Two

  6 Copy quote

• Why would so many risk their reputations, families, careers—even presidential legacies—for something that runs against human nature? Were monogamy an ancient, evolved trait characteristic of our species, as the standard narrative insists, these ubiquitous transgressions would be infrequent and such horrible enforcement unnecessary. No creature needs to be threatened with death to act in accord with its own nature.

  Christopher Ryan

  Running, Careers, Presidential

  11 Copy quote

• Life is a continuous flux. Our nonhuman ancestors bred, generation after generation, and incrementally begat what we now deem to be the species homo sapiens - ourselves. There is nothing about our ancestral line or about our current biology that dictates how we will evolve in the future. Nothing in the natural order demands that our descendants resemble us in any particular way. Very likely, they will not resemble us. We will almost certainly transform ourselves, likely beyond recognition, in the generations to come.

  Sam Harris

  Life, Order, Demand

  11 Copy quote

• Both ground- rents and the ordinary rent of land are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. The annual produce of the land and labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great body of the people, might be the same after such a tax as before. Ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land are, therefore, perhaps the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them.

  Adam Smith

  Real, Land, People

  Adam Smith (1869). “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 2”, p.437

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a human longing to go back to other times. We all know how when we were children we asked our parents, "What was it like when you were a kid?" I think it probably has something to do with our survival as a species.

  David McCullough

  Children, Kids, Thinking

  Source: www.neh.gov

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The point of sloths is to bring a sense of wonder, magic, and happiness to all other species. Did you know that every other animal's favorite animal is the sloth?

  Ann Burton

  Animal, Magic, Sloth

  Source: www.buzzfeed.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We see them [animals] as the Ice Age is ending and we know that actually in the long run, they're not going to make it. And there's something beautiful about that, beautifully sad. The way the characters are woven together in the film adds to the emotion because they need each other. The message is that it doesn't matter what species you are, you can still love each other and that is a fantastic message.

  John Leguizamo

  Beautiful, Running, Character

  "Ice Age 2 - John Leguizamo (Sid) interview". Interview with Jack Foley, www.indielondon.co.uk.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would hope with all my heart that people understand this and see it in the film. And there are also other messages in Happy Feet, like racial and environmental ones, but none of them are so overt. George has made a great story about penguins with a lot of humanity in it and audiences can follow a species we don't know that well.

  Brittany Murphy

  Heart, Feet, People

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mass extinctions may not threaten distant futures, but they are decidedly unpleasant for species caught up in the throes of their power.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Mass Extinction, May, Caught

  5 Copy quote

• As a species, we are forever sticking our finger into the electric socket of the universe to see what will happen next.

  Terry Pratchett

  Forever, Next, Fingers

  Terry Pratchett (2014). “A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-fiction”, p.83, Random House

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Although Nature needs thousands or millions of years to create a new species, man needs only a few dozen years to destroy one.

  Victor Blanchard Scheffer

  Men, Years, Needs

  8 Copy quote

• Outstanding examples of genius - a Mozart, a Shakespeare, or a Carl Friedrich Gauss - are markers on the path along which our species appears destined to tread.

  Fred Hoyle

  Example, Genius, Path

  4 Copy quote

• There is a beginning and end to all life - and to all human endeavors. Species evolve and die off. Empires rise, then break apart. Businesses grow, then fold. There are no exceptions. I'm OK with all that. Yet it pains me to bear witness to the sixth great extinction, where we humans are directly responsible for the extirpation of so many wonderful creatures and invaluable indigenous cultures. It saddens me to observe the plight of our own species; we appear to be incapable of solving our problems.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Pain, Culture, Plight

  Yvon Chouinard (2016). “Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual”, p.16, Penguin

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.

  Carl Sagan

  Simple, Self, Perfect

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.362, Ballantine Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Without argument the species would parish.

  Gerry Spence

  Argument, Parish

  6 Copy quote

• We are at a point in human evolution when human solidarity on a global scale is absolutely vital for the survival of the human species. That means understanding that ... we are all co-inhabitants of this planet.

  Petra Kelly

  Mean, Understanding, Survival

  15 Copy quote

• Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should not be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species.

  James G. Frazer

  Buddhism, Blow, Roots

  6 Copy quote