Quotes About Species

Nature [provides] with the excitement of the dance in the interest of the reproduction of the species.

Exactly why having more cognitive complexity makes a species live longer isn't totally decided by science yet. But the simplest answer is probably the best answer: The species is using its intelligence to survive. Smart animals figure things out. They solve problems and learn to avoid predators.

in the long run the practice of solidarity proves much more advantageous to the species than the development of individuals endowed with predatory inclinations.

I mean to say, we all sprang from humble origins. Goodness gracious, who would have thought that a species of monkey would take over the kingdom of the world. … I cannot help but feel that the monkey was not a good choice. Surely one of the cat family would have been much more satisfactory. They have a much less emotional approach to life. ("The Shadmock")

As I said earlier it is most surprising that the kingdom of then world should have come under the sway of a species of monkey, and there is reason to suppose that there were other claimants to the throne. ("The Shadmock")

Noah, however, was a son of a bitch of a captain who ran a very tight ship. Only pairs of the best and the brightest were allowed to climb the plank—perpetuate the species, repopulate the planet, and all that Nazi nonsense. Would Noah have allowed a lesbian zebra aboard, an unmarried hedgehog, a limping lemur?

Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.

Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species within bounds.

In a fragile environment, we need to be aware of ourselves as members of a uniquely powerful species living among other species who are quite as interesting as we are but vulnerable to us because we are cleverer in more destructive ways.

Biological diversity is messy. It walks, it crawls, it swims, it swoops, it buzzes. But extinction is silent, and it has no voice other than our own.

I also have an idea for a book on biodiversity, and why and how we should be conserving it.

It really sucks to be the number two intelligent species on this planet; you can just ask gorillas.

Each simian had a much different body suit, so besides trying to define class across species, there was a definite attempt to dress each group in different styles.

The unity of humanity can be explained in a mystical way, as Emerson did with his term "over-soul" (see below); but it can also be put into scientific terms. Science has revealed that all human beings belong to one species, with the same anatomy and brain structure. We're all part of one family; descended, in fact, from one common ancestor. Racial and cultural differences are only secondary and surface—the unity of humanity is primary and fundamental.

No one around me was doing anything, even making conversation. They were all just perfectly inert, laid out prone or supine as if submitting to autopsy or dissection. Only the dead or the lowest of species can bask, I'm convinced.

It is utterly naive, futile, uninformed—to think that our species is exceptional. So designated to master the beasts of the Earth, as in the Book of Genesis!

Recent studies suggest we are already in a period of extreme disequilibrium. Over the past 10,000 years human evolution has occurred 10-100x faster than at any other time in our species history.121

I have failed Drill told Memory. You knew the odds were long, Memory said. You knew that in negotiations with species this backward there have only been a handful of successes, and hundreds of failures.

The single simplest reason why human space flight is necessary is this, stated as plainly as possible: keeping all your breeding pairs in one place is a retarded way to run a species.

For what is history, but... huge libel on human nature, to which we industriously add page after page, volume after volume, as if we were holding up a monument to the honor, rather than the infamy of our species.

We are living in the most destructive and, hence, the most stupid period of the history of our species.

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. . . We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

To experience the true richness of our humanity, we need to be a species united.

O homem é a única espécie biológica que destruiu a sua própria função sexual natural e está doente em conseqüência disso.