Species Quotes - Page 13

• the compulsion to read and write - and it seems to me it should be, even must be, a compulsion - is a bit of mental wiring the species has selected, over time, in order, as the life span increases, to keep us interested in ourselves.

  Lorrie Moore

  Reading, Writing, Order

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• I don't think we have learnt to keep within the limits. They are quite elastic but there is a point beyond which they will break and then you will get a complete and massive change in the climate in which the survival of human species might not be compatible.

  Michael Meacher

  Thinking, Survival, Climate

  "Michael Meacher MP: humans only have 200-300 years left on earth". Interview with Tom Levitt, www.theecologist.org. July 22, 2010.

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• Of the many species that have existed on earth - estimates run as high as fifty billion - more than ninety-nine per cent have disappeared. In the light of this, it is sometimes joked that all of life today amounts to little more than a rounding error.

  Elizabeth Kolbert

  Running, Errors, Light

  "The Sixth Extinction?" by Elizabeth Kolbert, www.newyorker.com. May 25, 2009.

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• Love and friendship, two of life's abiding rewards, are endangered species in Hollywood. People crave both, mistaking alliance for friendship, lust for love, and ambition for both.

  Lynda Obst

  Ambition, Two, People

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• My sister and I may have been crafted of the same genetic clay, baked in the same uterine kiln, but we were disparate species, doomed never to love each other except blindly.

  Judith Kelman

  Clay, May, My Sister

  Judith Kelman (2005). “Where Shadows Fall”, Jove

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• Women were the slave class that maintained the species in order to free the other half for the business of the world.

  Shulamith Firestone

  Women, Order, Class

  SHULAMITH FIRESTONE (1970). “THE DIALECTIC OF SEX”

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• there are two types of the male species of Homo sapiens: men, and Italian men.

  Letitia Baldrige

  Italian, Men, Two

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• It is almost as hard for us to sense our own species quality as it is to sense our species smell.

  Lois Crisler

  Smell, Quality, Hard

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• If we can move together as a species, I think that there is a possibility that we can make the world a better place.

  Dave Sitek

  Moving, Thinking, Together

  "TV on the Radio". Interview with Chris Dahlen, pitchfork.com. October 2, 2006.

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• Our society is turning toward more and more needless consumption. It is a vicious circle that I compare to cancer . . . . Should we eliminate suffering, diseases? The idea is beautiful, but perhaps not a benefit for the long term. We should not allow our dread of diseases to endanger the future of our species. . . . In order to stabilize world population, we need to eliminate 350,000 people a day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Beautiful, Cancer, Order

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• I suggest that going to Mars means permanence on the planet - a mission by which we are building up a confidence level to become a two-planet species.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Mean, Two, Building Up

  Buzz Aldrin, Leonard David (2013). “Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration”, p.167, National Geographic Books

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• Is the destiny of the human species to sit back and play with our mouse and computer and imagine, fantasize?

  Buzz Aldrin

  Destiny, Play, Computer

  "Buzz Aldrin: The Right Stuff". Interview with Jim Clash, www.askmen.com.

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• One of the most irresponsible things we can do is eat in ignorance, without any awareness of what our eating is doing to the world or to other species.

  Michael Pollan

  Ignorance, World, Eating

  "Michael Pollan: The Omnivore’s Dilemma". Interview with Anne E. McBride, leitesculinaria.com. March 20, 2007.

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• The planet needs trees. If there is indeed that carbon dioxide out there in the atmosphere, the only species on the planet that can actually trap it for us in a natural process of photosynthesis are the trees.

  Wangari Maathai

  Tree, Atmosphere, Needs

  Source: www.sbs.com.au

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• Zoologists have reckoned there are up to at least 750 species of animal that have been observed exhibiting same-sex behaviour, or gender role transformation (which is very common in a wide range of fauna). There is only one species on earth, however, which has exhibited homophobia or transphobia. And that is the species homo sapiens sapiens. Us. So let's not allow the foolish, ignorant or bigoted ever to use words like "natural."

  Stephen Fry

  Sex, Animal, Ignorant

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• A satirist, often in danger himself, has the bravery of knowing that to withhold wit's conjecture is to endanger the species.

  Penelope Gilliatt

  Knowing, Bravery, Satire

  Penelope Gilliatt (1990). “To wit: skin and bones of comedy”, Scribner

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• Conscience is the still small voice that has been trying since the infancy of our species to tell us that we are evolutionarily, emotionally, and spiritually One, and that if we seek peace and happiness, we must behave that way.

  Martha Stout

  Voice, Trying, Way

  Martha Stout, Ph.D. (2005). “The Sociopath Next Door”, p.216, Harmony

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• Suffice to say, many women find their first appearance on a comedy panel show to be their last. Second chances seem to be given less often to the female of the species.

  Jo Brand

  Second Chance, Lasts, Firsts

  "Women - beware panel shows!". www.theguardian.com. June 9, 2009.

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• We may talk of saving antique linens, species, or languages; but whatever we are intent on saving, when a restoration succeeds, we rescue ourselves.

  Howard Mansfield

  Restoration, Saving, May

  Howard Mansfield (2001). “The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age”, p.12, UPNE

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• What happens to other species also happens to us.

  Bill Nye

  Happens

  Bill Nye (2014). “Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation”, p.4, St. Martin's Press

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• We are on red alert when it comes to how we are perceiving ourselves as a species. There's no desire to be an adult. Adulthood is not a goal. It's not seen as a gift.

  Frances McDormand

  Goal, Desire, Adults

  "A Star Who Has No Time for Vanity" by Frank Bruni, www.nytimes.com. October 15, 2014.

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• When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations.

  George Eliot

  Thinking, Animal, May

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.222, Penguin

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• I believe the world is increasingly in danger of becoming split into groups which cannot communicate with each other, which no longer think of each other as members of the same species.

  Bill Vaughan

  Believe, Thinking, Groups

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• The tendency of life is not the preservation of the species, but solely the preservation of each individual organism, as long as it is in existence at all, and is able to carry on its life processes.

  Boris Sidis

  Long, Able, Life Is

  "Nervous Ills their Cause and Cure" by Boris Sidis, (p. 20), 1922.

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• No one is shallow and vulgar forever; sooner or later the whole species likes to be profound.

  Carol Bly

  Profound, Forever, Likes

  Carol Bly (2000). “My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories”, p.51, Milkweed Editions

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