Quotes About Species

Darwin, on grounds such as this, believed that the human species is a moral one—that, in fact, we are the only moral animal. "A moral being is one who is capable of comparing his past and future actions or motives, and of approving or disapproving of them," he wrote. "We have no reason to suppose that any of the lower animals have this capacity.

In the new view, human beings are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their constitutional ignorance of the misuse.

In the new view, human beings are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their constitutional ignorance of the misuse. The title of this book is not wholly without irony.

Darwin once summed up natural selection in ten words: "[M]ultiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.

In some species, females are so successful as prostitutes that they never need to find food themselves.

If citizenship is a matter of shared beliefs, then I believe in the democracy of species. If citizenship means an oath of loyalty to a leader, then I choose the leader of the trees. If good citizens agree to uphold the laws of the nation, then I choose natural law, the law of reciprocity, of regeneration, of mutual flourishing.

Same species, same earth, different stories. Like Creation stories everywhere, cosmologies are a source of identity and orientation to the world. They tell us who we are. We are inevitably shaped by them no matter how distant they may be from our consciousness.

What would it be like to be raised on gratitude, to speak to the natural world as a member of the democracy of species, to raise a pledge of interdependence? No declarations of political loyalty are required, just a response to a repeated question: "Can we agree to be grateful for all that is given?

Science can be a way of forming intimacy and respect with other species that is rivaled only by the observations of traditional knowledge holders. It can be a path to kinship.

people of the modern world suffer a great sadness, a "species loneliness"—estrangement from the rest of Creation.

A language teacher I know explained that grammar is just the way we chart relationships in language. Maybe it also reflects our relationships with each other. Maybe a grammar of animacy could lead us to whole new ways of living in the world, other species a sovereign people, a world with a democracy of species, not a tyranny of one—with moral responsibility to water and wolves, and with a legal system that recognizes the standing of other species. It's all in the pronouns.

But just because we don't think of them as humans doesn't mean they aren't beings. Isn't it even more disrespectful to assume that we're the only species that counts as 'persons'?" The arrogance of English is that the only way to be animate, to be worthy of respect and moral concern, is to be a human.

and with a legal system that recognizes the standing of other species. It's all in the pronouns.

We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species.

We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us.

What would it be like to be raised on gratitude, to speak to the natural world as a member of the democracy of species, to raise a pledge of interdependence?

The genus Dicranum has undergone considerable adaptive radiation, that is, the evolution of many new species from a common ancestor

humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They've been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.

As the land becomes impoverished, so too does the scope of their (ecology students, any young people) vision. When we talked about this after class, I realized that they could not even imagine what beneficial relations between their species and others might look like. How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like? If we can't imagine the generosity of geese?

In the indigenous view, humans are viewed as somewhat lesser beings in the democracy of species

Bob repeats an option that sounds pretty close to the birds I've been hearing in the morning. Not knowing amy species, I've been referring to them mentally as the happy birds. Versus crows and ravens, which are never happy. And seagulls and pigeons. which are just plain annoying.

It was Ivan's morning duty to open each box, identify the species, vigor, mood, and fang-count of the writhing things inside, and sort them by genuine urgency.

If suddenly there was a threat to this world form some other species from another planet, we'd forget all the little local differences that we have between our two countries and we would find out once and for all that we really are all human beings on this earth.

El humano Yiannis había cuidado de ella, de la misma manera que la tecno Maitena había cuidado de Lizard. Pero ahora las relaciones entre las especies se estaban pudriendo.