Species Quotes - Page 12

• Natural selection does not give any preference at all to anything that, in the long run, could be advantageous for the species but blindly rewards everything that, momentarily, affords greater procreative success.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Running, Long, Giving

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• I might be an endangered species.

  Waylon Jennings

  Peace, Special, Might

  Song: Endangered Species

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• I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.'

  Charles Darwin

  Religious, Science, Men

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• With the advent of genetic engineering the time required for the evolution of new species may literally collapse.

  Dee Hock

  Engineering, May, Evolution

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• ...the nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed - as a robot might be artificially constructed - to mimic the pain behavior of humans. A capacity to feel pain obviously enhances a species' prospects of survival...it is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings.

  Peter Singer

  Pain, Animal, Feelings

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• Space exploration must be undertaken not only out of simple human curiosity but also to further the survival of the species. The twentieth century has seen the unprecedented development and proliferation of magnificent technologies. Many of them, through design, ignorance, or misuse, are capable of destroying life as well as enhancing it. Space exploration alone holds the promise of eventual escape from a dying planet, provided we wisely manage our resources in the meantime and actually survive that long.

  Edgar Mitchell

  Ignorance, Technology, Simple

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• A new space race has begun, and most Americans are not even aware of it. This race is not about political prestige or military power. This new race involves the whole human species in a contest against time. All of the people of the Earth are in a desperate race against disaster... To save the Earth we must look beyond it, to interplanetary space. To present the collapse of civilization and the end of the world as we know it, we must understand that our planet does not exist in isolation.

  Ben Bova

  Military, Civilization, Space

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• I firmly believe that we who are alive and can think today-in the closing years of the 20th century-have a commitment to our species to make sure that the flicker of movement we have thus managed in space stays sufficiently kindled so that the people of the 21st century can build upon and extend the human abode from Earth to the cosmos beyond.

  Paul Levinson

  Believe, Commitment, Thinking

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• As a species, we are most animated when our days and nights on Earth are touched by the natural world. We can find immeasurable joy in the birth of a child, a great work of art, or falling in love.

  Richard Louv

  Falling In Love, Art, Children

  Richard Louv (2012). “The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age”, p.9, Algonquin Books

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• It's very limiting to us as a species, the concept of better-than/less-than. It just seems to be at its end. I'm like, this all fades to black, and it's gone. It's dust. Choose carefully what you obsess about.

  Meshell Ndegeocello

  Dust, Black, Gone

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• Whether many people realize it yet or not, man, the Inferior Animal, has by now proved himself incapable of keeping his own species - and others - alive for very much longer. So the earth has begun its own plan to set things right.

  Benjamin Hoff

  Men, Animal, People

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• I have just finished my sketch of my species theory. If as I believe that my theory is true & if it be accepted even by one competent judge, it will be a considerable step in science. I therefore write this, in case of my sudden death, as my most solemn & last request, which I am sure you will consider the same as if legally entered in my will, that you will devote 400£ to its publication & further will yourself, or through Hensleigh [Wedgwood], take trouble in promoting it.

  Charles Darwin

  Believe, Book, Writing

  Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn (1996). “On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection”, p.116, Hackett Publishing

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• Certainly paleontologists have found samples of an extremely small fraction, only, of the earth's extinct species, and even for groups that are most readily preserved and found as fossils they can never expect to find more than a fraction.

  George Gaylord Simpson

  Groups, Paleontology, Earth

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• For millions of years, this world has been a great gift to nearly everything living on it, a planet whose atmosphere, temperature, air, water, seasons, and weather were precisely calibrated to allow us - the big us, including forests and oceans, species large and small - to flourish.

  Rebecca Solnit

  Ocean, Weather, Air

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• I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.

  Daniel H. Wilson

  War, Thinking, Artificial Intelligence

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• We cannot learn freedom and responsibility within the confines of our own species. We cannot understand life and death and what they are for in exclusively human terms. Without that which is wild, the world becomes a cell block.

  Stephanie Mills

  Block, Responsibility, Cells

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• We are suffering today from a species of Christianity as dry as dust, as cold as ice, as pale as a corpse, and as dead as King Tut. We are suffering not from a lack of correct heads but of consumed hearts.

  Vance Havner

  Kings, Heart, Dust

  Vance Havner (0101). “It is Time”, p.63, Solid Christian Books

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• Actually I do support a charity, DefendersofWildLife.org. They help protect endangered species.

  Alex Meraz

  Support, Charity, Helping

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• Producer's Surplus is a convenient name for the genus of which the rent of land is the leading species.

  Alfred Marshall

  Land, Names, Producers

  Alfred Marshall, Peter Groenewegen (1997). “Collected works”

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• I had found again and again that the most aberrant population of a species - often having reached species rank, and occasionally classified even as a separate genus - occurred at a peripheral location, indeed usually at the most isolated peripheral location.

  Ernst Mayr

  Population, Location, Found

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, Harvard University Press

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• We're the only species that listens to Michael Bublé when we have sex. That's gotta be wrong.

  Chris D'Elia

  Sex

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• We know the product is going to stink. We know that because we live in the world, and we know that everything stinks. We all believe, Hey, maybe this one wont stink. We are a hopeful species. Stupid but hopeful. But were happy in that moment between the commercial and the purchase. And I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Stupid, Believe, Thinking

  "Jerry Seinfeld Gets Brutally Honest About Advertising in This Hilarious Speech at the Clios". www.adweek.com. October 02, 2014.

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• We should not knowingly allow any species or race to go extinct. And let us go beyond mere salvage to begin the restoration of natural environments, in order to enlarge wild populations and stanch the hemorrhaging of biological wealth. There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us.

  E. O. Wilson

  Race, Order, Diversity

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• Evolution doesn't care whether you believe in it or not, no more than gravity does. I want to rekindle excitement over what we've achieved as a species with the space program. We can't afford to regress back to the days of superstition.

  Seth MacFarlane

  Believe, Space, Doe

  "Seth MacFarlane on hosting the Oscars, being hated by 'South Park'". Interview with Jonah Weiner, www.cnn.com. December 11, 2012.

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• There has always been a tendency to classify children almost as a distinct species.

  Hugh Lofting

  Children, Tendencies

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