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A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays

Book by Lewis Thomas · 15 quotes · Science, Humans, Ifs

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A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays Quotes

“It is when physicians are bogged down by their incomplete technologies, by the innumerable things they are obliged to do in medicine when they lack a clear understanding of disease mechanisms, that the deficiencies of the health-care system are most conspicuous. If I were a policy-maker, interested in saving money for health care over the long haul, I would regard it as an act of high prudence to give high priority to a lot more basic research in biologic science.”

IfsGivingLongCareUnderstandingTechnologyClearPolicyDiseaseResearchRegardMedicinePrioritiesSavingHealth CareMakersMechanismPhysiciansPrudenceObligedIncompleteSaving MoneyDeficiencyHaulHealth Care SystemLong HaulPolicy MakersBasic Research
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“We hanker to go on, even in the face of plain evidence that long, long lives are not necessarily pleasurable in the kind of society we have arranged thus far. We will be lucky if we can postpone the search for new technologies for a while, until we have discovered some satisfactory things to do with the extra time.”

IfsKindLongFacesTechnologyGoes OnLuckyEvidenceThings To DoExtrasLong LifeNew TechnologyExtra Time
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“I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is no go. I cannot think of it this way. It is too big, too complex, with too many working parts lacking visible connections. The other night, driving through a hilly, wooded part of southern New England, I wondered about this. If not like an organism, what is it like, what is it most like? Then, satisfactorily for that moment, it came to me: it is most like a single cell”

IfsThinkingWayTryingKindHas BeensMomentsBigsEarthNightConnectionsEnglandComplexesDrivingCellsVisibleThat MomentSouthernOrganismsLackingNew England
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“Perhaps the safest thing to do at the outset, if technology permits, is to send music. This language may be the best we have for explaining what we are like to others in space, with least ambiguity. I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again. We would be bragging of course, but it is surely excusable to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance. We can tell the harder truths later.”

IfsMayWould BeFacesCoursesLanguageSpaceTechnologyVoteHarderThings To DoBeing The BestPermitAcquaintanceExplainingAmbiguityBragging
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“I am entitled to say, if I like, that awareness exists in all the individual creatures on the planet-worms, sea urchins, gnats, whales, subhuman primates, superprimate humans, the lot. I can say this because we do not know what we are talking about: consciousness is so much a total mystery for our own species that we cannot begin to guess about its existence in others.”

IfsKnowsHumansI CanScienceIndividualExistenceConsciousnessTalkingKnowledgeMysterySeaAwarenessPlanetsCreaturesSpeciesEntitledWormsWhalesPrimatesGnats
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“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
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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
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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
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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
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