Quotes About Adaptation

If man had more of a sense of humour, things might have turned out differently.

Ants that encounter in their path a dead philosopher may make good use of him.

Evolution is, as an engineer, an opportunist, not a perfectionist.

Put simply, unlike terrestrial organisms it did not adapt to its surroundings over the course of hundreds of millions of years, so as only then to produce a rational species, but it had gained control over its environment from the start.

The only way to deal with technology is with another technology. Man knows more about his dangerous tendencies than he did a hundred years ago, and in the next hundred years, his knowledge will be even more advanced. Then he will make use of it.

Our ability to adapt and therefore to accept everything is one of our greatest dangers. Creatures that are completely flexible, changeable, can have no fixed morality.

If we won't be able to get rid of our "guests," we'll grow used to them and we'll live with them, and if their Creator changes the rules of the game we'll adapt to the new ones, even if for a while we'll kick against the pricks, raise a storm.

You're moping because you aren't all you once were," she'd snapped. "Well, get over it. We're none of us what we once were. We all get old. We lose the use of our knees, or our faculties. But you know what? Life goes on. And there's still plenty of it to enjoy.

Panic is not an effective, long-term organizing strategy.

The process of cultural change is a long and difficult one.

Ebbene, la nostra forza è nel cambiamento, e anche nel cambiare quello che volevamo cambiare, e quindi cambiare il cambiamento.

Solo i pesci morti vanno con la corrente

Dice che l'uomo è stato creato padrone della terra, ma gli manca una cosa fondamentale: una borsa degli attrezzi. Ah, sospira, se ci fosse un cacciavite per togliere le idee sbagliate e un martello per fissare le buone intenzioni, una chiave inglese per stringere per sempre l'amore e una sega per tagliare col passato! Ma questa attrezzeria non ce l'hanno data e, dopo aver tentennato e scricchiolato, prima o poi ci romperemo.

So che oggi non sono lo stesso uomo di allora, e non si guarisce dalla propria ombra, le si affiancano soltanto nuove luci.

Sono solo un dinosauro, come dici tu, e cerco di estinguermi senza troppa tristezza.

What we knew is dead, and maybe the greatest part of what we were is dead. What's out there is new and perhaps good, but it's nothing we know.

You will only fail to learn if you do not learn from failing.

The best author is a dead author, because he's out of your way and you own the play. Take what he has given you and use it for what you need.

Whenever people propose that we go back to the traditional family, I always suggest that they pick a ballpark date for the family they have in mind. Once pinned down, they are invariably unwilling to accept the package deal that comes with their chosen model.

If you've ever tried to alter your own marital patterns you know that change doesn't happen overnight. In history, as in personal life, there are very few moments or events that mark a complete turning point. It takes a long time for ideas to filter through different social groups. Typically, individuals adopt only a few new behaviors at any one time, and old habits hang on long after most people have agreed they should be dropped.

At what point will elegant linguistic languor be permanently usurped by text-speak expediency? When will we humans abandon the ability to generate long, complex, lusciously worded emotional expressions—like Elizabethan sonnets!

Interaction modifies the world and this, in turn, modifies us and our understanding of the world.

For me, Buddhism is like a living organism. If it is to flourish outside self-enclosed ghettos of believers, it will have to meet the challenge of understanding, interacting with, and adapting to an environment that is strikingly different from those in which it has evolved.

If Buddhists choose to model their lives on the liberated arahant—or the idealized Mahayana bodhisattva, for that matter—rather than follow the example of Gotama, then I wonder how Buddhism will find a compelling voice to address the pressing issues of our world today.