Quotes About Species

owls, flamingos, hairy armadillos, and parrots

Yaldabaoth wants to stamp out all traces and all possibility of free, individualized human consciousness; he wants the human not to be an individual being, but only a member of a general species of pseudo-humanity -- to be a clever, earth-bound animal, a "homunculus".

Betrayal and grief have a certain color no matter what the species is.

On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "Does not!"

The act of coitus and the members employed therein are of such ugliness that were it not for the beauty of the faces and the adornments of the lovers, for the pent-up impulse and the frenetic state of mind, nature would lose the human species.

He thought of the smoked glass one was supposed to use to look at the sun during an eclipse. Surely this much beauty must be an evolutionary mistake: To steal the breath of onlookers cannot lead to increase of the human species. Perhaps such beauty didn't have anything to do with humans. Perhaps he was merely standing in the path of something else, caught in the crossfire of the gods as they signal with their sacred mirrors.

We truly are a species with amnesia. We have forgotten a very important part of our story.

The possession of such a big brain was no doubt an asset to these 'intelligent, spiritually sensitive, resourceful creatures'8 and the fossil record suggests that they were the dominant species on the planet from about 100,000 years ago until 40,000 years ago.

Our downfall as a species is that we are arrogant enough to think that we can control Mother Nature and stupid enough to think it is our job.

It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.

The Empire was quickly becoming the other , a featureless grey enemy that species of varied sorts would be able to stave off only if they united, all differences set aside. It was almost heartening to witness the dawn of hope, as cautious and fragile as it was.

You look at the history of any sentient species and what do you find but tableaux of violence and slaughter. It's finger-painted on the ceilings of caves and engraved into the walls of temples.

I recommend you stick to your own species, Shy Babe. p. 155

Humans were the weakest species. Maybe that was why they could be the meanest animals.

The social relations which are the basis of the reproduction of the species are founded upon the continuous union of parents in marriage.

Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozen that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health.

Politicians need a better understanding of global ecology. We need to be freed from our species-specific arrogance. No evidence exists that we are 'chosen', the unique species for which all the others were made. Nor are we the most important one because we are so numerous, powerful and dangerous.

Hopefully, some supervillain threat will come down, and we will have to unite as a species and fire our nukes into the sun or something.

In the 1970s, Safari Club International asked the federal government to approve its import of 1,125 not-yet-killed trophies of 40 endangered species, including gorillas, orangutans and tigers, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Perhaps genes did regulate the aging process. Perhaps different organisms had different life spans because a universal regulatory 'clock' was set to run at different speeds in different species.

How individuals of the same species surpass each other in these sensations and in other bodily faculties is universally known, but there is a limit to them, and their power cannot extend to every distance or to every degree.

The species will continue, whatever apocalypse we manage to unleash. It just won't be much fun to live through.

The "Otherizing" of women is the oldest oppression known to our species, and it's the model, the template, for all other oppressions.