Quotes About Adaptation

I quoted to him what I remembered of Charles Darwin: 'Judging by the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity...' Darwin was right, Nebogipfel said gently.

But few birds flew nowadays. Why fly when there was nothing to flee

Even now the blind scalpels of evolution took raw material adapted for a vanished world, and cut and shaped it for the conditions of the new.

Five million years was plenty of time to forget, as you evolved or devolved or whatever the hell.

Space is for the cephalopods, Maura. It never was meant for us.

It was a cold-blooded lottery that paid off often enough to be worthwhile adapting for.

We don't come into the world fully made, like the birds and the mice. We have to learn how to live.

provisions of the Constitution . . . are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil.50 The most important provisions . . . constitute the original inheritance of the American people, which they brought over with them from England. . . . Constitutions are not made, but they grow by an inherent law of progress and adaptation to changing circumstances.

Our evolved natures should be treated with respect, but not with deference. We did not evolve to be happy: rather we evolved to be happy, sad, miserable, angry, anxious, and depressed, as the mood takes us. We evolved to love and to hate, and to care and be callous. Our emotions are the carrots and sticks that our genes use to persuade us to achieve their ends. But their ends need not be our ends. Goodness and happiness may be goals attainable only by hoodwinking our genes.

It's strange how things can change back as suddenly as they changed originally. When one thing happens and suddenly, things are back to normal.

And things were back to normal except we were just friends.

He said it was the kind of book you made your own.

the juniors were acting different because they are now the seniors. They even had T-shirts made. I don't know who plans these things.

Al principio, pensé que su cara de pasmo era resultado de la sorpresa, pero al no desaparecer durante un rato largo, supe que no. De pronto caí en la cuenta de que si Michael siguiera todavía por aquí, Susan probablemente ya no «saldría» con él. No porque sea una mala persona o superficial o cruel, sino porque las cosas cambian. Y los amigos se van. Y la vida no se detiene por nadie.

I wish I could report that it's getting better, but unfortunately it isn't. It's hard, too, because we've started school again, and I can't go to the places where I used to go. And it can't be like it was. And I wasn't ready to say good-bye just yet. To tell you the truth, I've just been avoiding everything.

Not because she's a bad person or shallow or mean. But because things change. And friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody.

Life doesn't stop for anybody

It's strange how things can change back as suddenly as they changed originally. When one thing happens and suddenly, things are back to normal.

É estranho como tudo pode voltar ao que era antes tão de repente quanto mudou originalmente. E quando uma coisa acontece e, de repente, tudo volta ao normal.

De pronto caí en la cuenta de que si Michael siguiera todavía por aquí, Susan probablemente ya no saldría con él. No porque sea una mala persona o superficial o cruel, sino porque las cosas cambian y los amigos se van. Y la vida no se detiene por nadie.

Because things change, and friends leave, and life doesn't stop for anybody.

People's voices change a lot when they speak a different language.

Maybe he'll be different from who he was and always is.

As for leaving earth, the answer was universally no. "This is our home," one woman explained to the starship commander with tears running down her face. "Certainly we faced all the problems of immigrants, learning the language, earning a living, getting an education here that would qualify us for professional positions, but somehow we all did it. We became Americans, citizens of this planet.