Human Evolution Quotes - Page 2

• In very ancient times of human evolution upon earth, humanity's revelation in word and sound was not differentiated in song and speech, but they were one.

  Rudolf Steiner

  Song, Humanity, Earth

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• For every human illness, somewhere in the world there exists a plant which is the cure. I believe that there is a healing potential locked inside plants which is integral with their evolution, just as it is part of human evolution to learn to tap this wonderful gift of Nature.

  Rudolf Steiner

  Believe, Healing, World

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• Recent discoveries about apes suggest, however, that a gorilla or common chimp stands at least as good a chance being murdered as the average human.

  Jared Diamond

  Discovery, Average, Gorillas

  Jared Diamond (2013). “The Rise And Fall Of The Third Chimpanzee”, p.262, Random House

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• I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Memorable, Thinking, Intelligent

  The Observer, December 27, 1987.

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• We have reached a crossroads in human evolution where the only road which leads forward is towards a common passion. . . To continue to place our hopes in a social order achieved by external violence would simply amount to our giving up all hope of carrying the Spirit of the Earth to its limits.

  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

  Giving Up, Passion, Order

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• I remember writing a paper on human evolution in 1944, and I simply left Piltdown out. You could make sense of human evolution if you didn't try to put Piltdown into it.

  Sherwood Washburn

  Writing, Trying, Paper

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• The misery we inflict on sentient beings slackens our human evolution.

  Annie Besant

  Compassion, Misery, Evolution

  Annie Besant (1913). “Vegetarianism in the Light of Theosophy”

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• Perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark; that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleontology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about, but that is heresy.

  David Pilbeam

  Dark, Past, Data

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• Its [the anthropological method] power to make us understand the roots from which our civilization has sprung, that it impresses us with the relative value of all forms of culture, and thus serves as a check to an exaggerated valuation of the standpoint of our own period, which we are only too liable to consider the ultimate goal of human evolution, thus depriving ourselves of the benefits to be gained from the teachings of other cultures and hindering an objective criticism of our own work.

  Franz Boas

  Teaching, Other Cultures, Civilization

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• I'm afraid Dr. Mondrick chose an unfortunate publicity device. After all, the theory of human evolution is no longer front page news. Every known detail of the origin of mankind is extremely important to such a specialist as Dr. Mondrick, but it doesn't interest the man in the street - not unless it's dramatized.

  Jack Williamson

  Men, Important, Details

  Jack Williamson (2013). “Darker Than You Think”, p.25, Hachette UK

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• Anthroposophy is not a game, nor just a theory; it is a task that must be faced for the sake of human evolution.

  Rudolf Steiner

  Games, Tasks, Sake

  Rudolf Steiner (1993). “The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness”, p.86, Rudolf Steiner Press

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• The talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit.

  Michael Foley

  Flower, Self, Imagination

  Michael Foley (2010). “The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

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• Human evolution has two steps - from being somebody to being nobody; and from being nobody to being everybody. This knowledge can bring sharing and caring throughout the world.

  Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

  Caring, Two, World

  Ravi Shankar, Ravi Shankar (Sri Sri) (2005). “Wisdom for the New Millennium”

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• By being discontented, the spirit searches for ways to improve its condition and for a better channel for expressing itself. This sense of discontent is the engine that drives all creativity and innovation... Our blue moments are a necessary part of our human evolution.

  Chin-Ning Chu

  Creativity, Blue, Innovation

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• What is happening, I think, it's really bigger than psychedelics, it's bigger than human evolution. We are not making the waves in this ocean. We are corks, riding the waves of the ocean. But we are privileged, by perhaps chance alone, to occupy a unique moment in the history of the universe. A moment when the universe goes through some kind of self-transforming, evolutionary, inflationary expansion. That's what's happening.

  Terence McKenna

  Ocean, Unique, Thinking

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• Cow protection to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in the human evolution.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Cows, Evolution, Wonderful

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• There are a couple of watersheds in human evolution. Most people are comfortable thinking about tool use and language use as watersheds. But the ability to play non-zero-sum games was another watershed.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Zero, Couple, Thinking

  Interview with Tamler Sommers, www.believermag.com. August 2005.

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• Technology is a liberation. I think the information age probably is the best thing to happen to the human race in human evolution. Now you have the equal opportunity to equip yourself through information and knowledge and express yourself as an independent mind.

  Ai Weiwei

  Independent, Technology, Opportunity

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Stanford may be the best university in the world, but you can get all the way through here without knowing where your food came from, without being able to say where we came from, without being able to give a coherent description of why the climate is changing and why we should be concerned about it. So I started teaching a course in human evolution and the environment that's open to all Stanford students, no prerequisites.

  Paul R. Ehrlich

  Teaching, Knowing, Giving

  "Q&A: Paul Ehrlich". Interview with Jesse Finfrock, www.motherjones.com. November, 2008.

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• We have to understand ourselves as a part of the narrative of evolution. And evolution never stops. The notion that human evolution at some point stopped and "history" took over is absurd, though it is widespread among various social scientists and humanists.

  Robert Neelly Bellah

  Narrative, Evolution, Scientist

  Source: blogs.ssrc.org

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• Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

  Albert Einstein

  Funny Inspirational, Food, Health

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.15, St. Martin's Press

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• Every nursing mother, in the midst of her little dependent brood, has far more right to whine, sulk or scold, as temperament dictates, because beefsteak and coffee are not prepared for her and exactly to her taste, than any man ever had or ever can have during the present stage of human evolution.

  Antoinette Brown Blackwell

  Mother, Coffee, Nursing

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• Healthy areas that are richest in information are those areas in the wild where we can get all the information that's available to us within our human hearing range. The most valuable information throughout human evolution has been faint sounds. We tend to think in our modern world that if it's loud, if it grabs our attention, it's important. We get a lot of that in advertising. But in nature, it's the faintest sound that's important; it has determined, in the past of our ancestors, perhaps, if they will live or die. Faint sounds are the earliest clues of newly arriving information.

  Gordon Hempton

  Thinking, Past, Healthy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• We can, following the exemple of Kant, consider the moral development and improvement of men, as the supreme goal of human evolution.

  African Spir

  Men, Goal, Moral

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 61), 1937.

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• The nature of emergent technology is, as Kevin Kelly once said, right out of control. It's an element of human evolution that's completely out of control. It's sort of driving itself, and I don't see it ceasing to do that.

  William Gibson

  Technology, Elements, Kevin

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. August 22, 2007.

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