Quotes About Nature

Half a wing could save your life by easing your fall from a tree of a certain height. And 51 per cent of a wing could save you if you fall from a slightly taller tree.

Evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are embedded in the rocks of eons past.

The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit is running for his life while the fox is only running for his dinner.' My colleague John Krebs and I have dubbed this the 'life/dinner principle'.

It is in the nature of scientific truths that they are waiting to be discovered, by whoever has the ability to do so. If two different people independently discover something in science, it will be the same truth. Unlike works of art, scientific truths do not change their nature in response to the individual human beings who discover them. This is both a glory, and a limitation, of science.

The flagellar motor of bacteria is a prodigy of human nature. It drives the only known example outside of human technology of a freely rotating axle.

Los depredadores parecen bellamente diseñados para cazar a sus presas, mientras que las presas parecen igual de bellamente diseñadas para escapar de ellos. ¿De qué lado está Dios?.

Why are genetic determinants thought to be any more ineluctable, or blame-absolving, than 'environmental' ones?

Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

As ever when we unweave a rainbow, it will not become less wonderful.

Contraception is sometimes attacked as 'unnatural'. So it is, very unnatural. The trouble is, so is the welfare state. I think that most of us believe the welfare state is highly desirable. But you cannot have an unnatural welfare state, unless you also have unnatural birth control; otherwise, the end result will be misery even greater than that which obtains in nature.

Even in apparently faithful monogamous species, the female may be wedded to a male's territory rather than to him personally.

St Augustine said it quite openly: 'There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn' (quoted in Freeman 2002).

Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that 'God is the ultimate' or 'God is our better nature' or 'God is the universe.' Of course, like any other word, the word 'God' can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal.

We live on a planet where we are surrounded by perhaps ten million species, each one of which independently displays a powerful illusion of apparent design. Each species is well fitted to its particular way of life.

Pantheism is sexed-up atheism.

Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings.

But we exist now. We are caring, intelligent animals and can treasure our brief lives. Why is eternal better than temporal, or supernatural higher than natural? Doesn't rarity increase value? God is an idea, not a natural creature. Why should his image be more valuable than our own nature?

Ä°ÅŸte bu gerçek, yani ak?ll? tasar?m?n kendisine ait bir kan?t?n?n olmamas? ve kendi kan?t? yerine bilimsel bilginin b?rakt??? boÅŸluklarda bir yabani ot gibi geliÅŸmesi, bilim bir boÅŸluk bulduÄŸunda bunun araÅŸt?r?lmas? için çaÄŸr? yapma ihtiyac? aç?s?ndan s?k?nt? yaratan bir ÅŸeydir.

There is real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.

This 'shuddering before the beautiful', this incredible fact that a discovery motivated by a search after the beautiful in mathematics should find its exact replica in Nature, persuades me to say that beauty is that to which the human mind responds at its deepest and most profound. S. Chandrashekhar , physicist, cited by Richard Dawkins

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation....In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent.

It is a disturbing aspect of human nature that if there is a place where there are no consequences and where the most grotesque murders are tolerated in the name of a cult claiming to be a faith, a certain type of person will be attracted to it.