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Lewis Thomas

Lewis Thomas Quotes

Physician

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Famous Lewis Thomas Quotes

“Exclamation points are the most irritating of all. Look! they say, look at what I just said! How amazing is my thought! It is like being forced to watch someone else's small child jumping up and down crazily in the center of the living room shouting to attract attention. If a sentence really has something of importance to say, something quite remarkable, it doesn't need a mark to point it out. And if it is really, after all, a banal sentence needing more zing, the exclamation point simply emphasizes its banality!”

IfsNeedsWritingLooksChildrenSaidRoomsAttentionWatchesImportanceMarkSentencesRemarkableMy ThoughtsJumpingUp And DownShoutingLiving RoomIrritatingSmall ChildBanalityExclamationExclamation PointsZing
Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“It is almost always a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period. The period tells you that that is that; if you didn't get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer.”

IfsWritingLittlesFeelingsWantedMovingPleasureGreaterPeriodsExpectedPleasantParcelExpectancy
Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“The commas are the most useful and usable of all the stops. It is highly important to put them in place as you go along. If you try to come back after doing a paragraph and stick them in the various spots that tempt you you will discover that they tend to swarm like minnows into sorts of crevices whose existence you hadn't realized and before you know it the whole long sentence becomes immobilized and lashed up squirming in commas. Better to use them sparingly, and with affection, precisely when the need for each one arises, nicely, by itself.”

IfsKnowsNeedsWritingTryingLongImportantWholeUseExistenceSticksAffectionVariousSentencesAriseSpotsParagraphSwarmsCreviceMinnows
Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“Mistakes are at the very base of human thought, embedded there, feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack for being wrong, we could never get anything useful done. We think our way along by choosing between right and wrong alternatives, and the wrong choices have to be made as often as the right ones. We get along in life this way.”

IfsThinkingWayLifeHumansMadeDoneProblemChoicesMistakeCreativityRootsStructureAlternativesProblem SolvingFeedingEmbeddedKnackHuman ThoughtBeing WrongWrong Choices
Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other.”

PeopleWayMindHumansDifferentPlayLiteratureIndividualUnderstandingChangeHuman BeingsMusicCasesUniqueCapacityIndividualityEvolveDifferent PeoplesPonderingShoutingUnique Individuals
Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“Viewed from the distance of the moon, the astonishing thing about the earth, catching the breath, is that it is alive. The photographs show the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the foreground, dry as an old bone. Aloft, floating free beneath the moist, gleaming, membrane of bright blue sky, is the rising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos.”

ShowsEarthSpaceAliveSkyMoonBreathsBlueDistancePhotographBonesSurfaceRisingDryCosmosFloatingCatchingAstonishingBlue SkyForegroundMembranes
Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“My mitochondria comprise a very large proportion of me. I cannot do the calculation, but I suppose there is almost as much of them in sheer dry bulk as there is the rest of me. Looked at in this way, I could be taken for a very large, motile colony of respiring bacteria, operating a complex system of nuclei, microtubules, and neurons for the pleasure and sustenance of their families, and running, at the moment, a typewriter.”

WayMomentsRunningPleasureTakenComplexesDryProportionSheerCalculationsColonyTypewritersSustenanceNeuronsBacteriaNucleusComplex SystemsMitochondria
Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of re recognition, for old memories and old connection.”

ThinkingFeelsMindMomentsMemoriesBrainPerceptionConnectionsComplexesSmellSettingSettingsRecognitionGoing To WorkOdorPollingOld Memories
Author:Lewis Thomas
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