Extinction Quotes - Page 6

• Wilberforce did not believe in either evolution or extinction.
  Owen believed in extinction but not evolution.
  Lamarck believed in evolution but not extinction.
  Darwin believed in evolution and extinction.
  All four of them believed in God.

  Sara Maitland

  Believe, Four, Evolution

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• Mass extinctions may not threaten distant futures, but they are decidedly unpleasant for species caught up in the throes of their power.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Mass Extinction, May, Caught

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• Government, like any other organism, refuses to acquiesce in its own extinction. This refusal, of course, involves the resistance to any effort to diminish its powers and prerogatives.

  H. L. Mencken

  Government, Effort, Resistance

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.204, Knopf

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• By 1914, the royal families of Europe were inbred to the point of pantomine. You feel about them as you do about koalas. Nothing so stupid has any right to exist on the planet. On the other hand, they are rather cute, and in grave danger of extinction due to their specialised needs.

  Nancy Banks-Smith

  Cute, Stupid, Koalas

  "Last night's TV" by Nancy Banks-Smith, www.theguardian.com. December 15, 2006.

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• The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale: to an observer in the Andromeda nebula, the sign of our extinction would be no more than a match flaring for a second in the heavens: and if that match does blaze in the darkness there will be none to mourn a race that used a power that could have lit a beacon in the stars to light its funeral pyre. The choice is ours.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Stars, Light, Race

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• The last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.
  [Lat., Supremus ille dies non nostri extinctionem sed commutationem affert loci.]

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Death, Lasts, Doe

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• One of the many things I do not understand about Americans is this: what is it like to be a citizen of a superpower, to maintain democratically the means of planetary extinction. I wonder how this contributes to the dreamlife of America, a dreamlife that is so deep and troubled.

  Martin Amis

  Mean, America, Citizens

  Martin Amis (1987). “The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America”, Penguin Group USA

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• Men's bodies are our women's works of art. Given to us power of control, we will never carelessly throw them in to fill up the gaps in human relationships made by international ambitions and greeds ... War will pass when intellectual culture and activity have made possible to the female an equal share in the governance of modern national life; it will probably not pass away much sooner; its extinction will not be delayed much longer.

  Olive Schreiner

  Art, War, Ambition

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• 'Revelation assures us that 'righteousness exalteth a nation.' Communities are dealt with in this world by the wise and just Ruler of the Universe. He rewards or punishes them according to their general character. The diminution of public virtue is usually attended with that of public happiness, and the public liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.

  Samuel Adams

  Wise, Character, Long

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• So why don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required - we could party our way into extinction!

  Peter Singer

  Party, Sacrifice, Population

  Peter Singer (2016). “Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter”, p.33, Princeton University Press

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• We are in the midst of the 6th largest extinction event in the history of the plant and the first caused by human action.

  Graciela Chichilnisky

  Events, Firsts, Action

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• This is a strange book: visionary and dark. It stutters out a kind of music: repeated phrases which accumulate errors and mutate as they go like chromosomes or, as Woodward puts it better, 'visible fissile ribbons.' It's as if we were present for the moments of creation and extinction. Uncanny Valley is ominous and beautiful.

  Rae Armantrout

  Beautiful, Book, Dark

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• If we somehow put a value on species extinction and factor that into our costs that bottom line would look very different. IF we put any resource depletion into costs our bottom line would change. So what we have is a dishonest market that does not take into account all the costs when it establishes its prices. We need an honest marketplace before we can let the market work for sustainability rather than against it as it works today.

  Ray Anderson

  Business, Lines, Today

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• Agriculture has become essential to life; the forest, the lake, and the ocean cannot sustain the increasing family of man; population declines with a declining cultivation, and nations have ceased to be with the extinction of their agriculture.

  Elias Hasket Derby

  Ocean, Men, Agriculture

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• If in your lifetime you watch a species go extinct, or plummet almost to the point of extinction, that is a sign that something really serious is going on.

  Elizabeth Kolbert

  Watches, Serious, Lifetime

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• For thousands of years it has been understood that, just as civilizations have to come to an end, there can even be times of global extinctions. But always there are people who know how to gather the essence of life and hold it safely, protect it and nurture it until the next seeding.

  Peter Kingsley

  Years, Essence, Civilization

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• Amidst the vicissitudes of the earth's surface, species cannot be immortal, but must perish, one after another, like the individuals which compose them. There is no possibility of escaping from this conclusion.

  Charles Lyell

  Science, Escaping, Earth

  Sir Charles Lyell (1853). “Principles of geology ; or, The modern changes of the earth and its inhabitants considered as illustrative of geology”, p.696

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• We're handing them [young people & future generations] a climate system which is potentially out of their control. We're in an emergency: you can see what's on the horizon over the next few decades with the effects it will have on ecosystems, sea level and species extinction

  James Hansen

  Future, Sea, Ecosystems

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• Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.

  Samuel Adams

  Long, Liberty, Moral

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

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• I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist. I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.

  Prince Philip

  Animal, Numbers, Nwo

  Foreword to "If I Were an Animal" by Fleur Cowles, 1987.

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• We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding One generation and out. We have no problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding.

  Wayne Pacelle

  Animal, Generations, Different

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• If I had my life to live over again I would not devote it to develop new industrial processes: I would try to add my humble efforts to use Science to the betterment of the human race. I despair of the helter-skelter methods of our vaulted homo sapiens, misguided by his ignorance and his politicians. If we continue our ways, there is every possibility that the human race may follow the road of former living races of animals whose fossils proclaim that they were not fit to continue. Religion, laws and morals is not enough. We need more. Science can help us.

  Leo Baekeland

  Ignorance, Humility, Humble

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• The extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on Earth - social and environmental.

  Ingrid Newkirk

  Mean, Race, Dwelling

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• For the complete extinction of the state, complete Communism is necessary.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Communication, Communism, States

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• Transcendence is the only real alternative to extinction. This is serious. This may be the ultimate final exam.

  Joel Garreau

  Real, Finals, Alternatives

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