Quotessence
Home / Authors / Lewis Thomas
Lewis Thomas

Lewis Thomas Quotes

Physician

Filter quotes by topic

AllScienceHumansIfsEarthMindThinkingWayCellsKnowsStillsSeemsSpeciesCenturyGenesNeedsTryingBrainCreaturesHuman BeingsLanguage

Famous Lewis Thomas Quotes

“As a species, taking all in all, we are still too young, too juvenile, to be trusted. We have spread across the face of the earth in just a few thousand years, no time at all as evolution clocks time, covering all livable parts of the planet, endangering other forms of life, and now threatening ourselves.”

YearsStillsEarthFacesFormYoungPlanetsEvolutionThousandSpeciesSpreadClockTrustedThousand YearsThreateningCoveringJuvenile
Book:Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony
Create image

“Doctors, dressed up in one professional costume or another, have been in busy practice since the earliest records of every culture on earth. It is hard to think of a more dependable or enduring occupation, harder still to imagine any future events leading to its extinction.”

ThinkingHas BeensStillsHardEarthCulturePracticeRecordsImagineEventsDoctorsHarderEndureBusyOccupationCostumesExtinctionDressed UpDependableFuture Events
Book:Fragile Species
Create image

“I am a member of a fragile species, still new to the earth, the youngest creatures of any scale, here only a few moments as evolutionary time is measured, a juvenile species, a child of a species. We are only tentatively set in place, error prone, at risk of fumbling, in real danger at the moment of leaving behind only a thin layer of of our fossils, radioactive at that.”

ChildrenStillsRealMomentsEarthBehindsRiskDangerCreaturesMembersErrorsSpeciesLeavingScalesFragileLayersFossilsJuvenile
Book:Fragile Species
Create image

“As evolutionary time is measured, we have only just turned up and have hardly had time to catch breath, still marveling at our thumbs, still learning to use the brand-new gift of language. Being so young, we can be excused all sorts of folly and can permit ourselves the hope that someday, as a species, we will begin to grow up.”

StillsUseYoungScienceLanguageGrowsGrowing UpLearningEvolutionBreathsSpeciesBrandsFollySomedayPermitThumbsMeasurementBrand NewMarveling
Author:Lewis Thomas
Create image