Quotes About Adaptation

In grade school I was taught that the United States is a melting pot. People from all over the world come here for freedom and to pursue a better life. They arrive with next to nothing, work incredibly hard, learn a new language and new customs, and in a generation they become an integral part of our amazing nation.

feedback plays a minor or "modulatory" role in the brain.

The choice we face as we think about the future is, should we continue to be driven by our biological past or choose instead to embrace our newly emerged intelligence? We may not be able to do both.

Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again. — HENRY FORD

I realised all the good ideas were taken before I was even born.

When you're used to having electricity and then all of a sudden it's taken away, you're basically just one step from being a wild animal.

But as I have noticed on more than one occaision, life itself is unfair, and there is no complaint department, so we might as well accept things the way they happen, clean up the mess, and move on.

The law is not so much carved in stone as it is written in water, flowing in and out with the tide.

If you're not cutting away more ideas than you keep, you're probably not doing discovery work right.

be prepared for surprises and bad news. In fact, celebrate the bad news, because you could have received the same bad news months later, after you'd built the software.

Stories get their name not from how they're supposed to be written, but from how they're supposed to be used.

we need to acknowledge that building software isn't the same as working on an assembly line. You're not just building one more widget like the one you built a few minutes ago. Each new story we create software to support is something new.

Scope doesn't creep; understanding grows.

to get something built; rather, it is to learn if we're building

That's religion in America, under constant revision.

looked watery, like it had suddenly filled

What makes you think I'm coping?" "Well, for one thing, you're not lying on the floor in the fetal position. That's a good start.

That doesn't change the fact that it's really hard to walk through the jungle when you can't see." "It's not the jungle. It's the rainforest." "Same thing." "No, it's not.

that's true, then maybe we need to accept the idea that progress isn't such a bad thing, even when there's collateral damage. You shouldn't continue to use outdated methods when a better option exists just to maintain the status quo." "Come on, John Henry, you can't really believe that!" "Do you want technological advancement to remain stagnant? This could be your chance to acquire some new skills.

Sometimes it can take me a while to relearn my own songs, but I've gotten better over the years at keeping a record of the tunings I'm playing in and/or capo positions. But there are some songs from long ago that I've never been able to figure out. Songs that will never be finished

Natural places are no different than human cities. The old exists next to the new. Invasive species integrate with or push out native species. The landscape you see around you is the same as seeing an old cathedral next to a skyscraper.

Would that not be the final humbling of the human condition? That the trees and birds, the fox and the rabbit, the wolf and the deer... reach a point at which they do not even notice us, as we are transformed.

If someone seems to have changed from one session to another, make sure you haven't changed instead." A warning from his mother, once upon a time, delivered as if she'd upended a box of spy-advice fortune cookies and chosen one at random.

Do you understand? Nothing thrives without being broken. Nothing exists without being dead first.