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Lewis Thomas

Lewis Thomas Quotes

Physician

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Famous Lewis Thomas Quotes

“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
Book:A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays
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“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
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“We're as clever as we think we are, but we'll be a lot cleverer when we learn to use not just one brain but to pool huge numbers of brains. We're at a level technologically where we can share information and think collectively about our problems. We do it in science all the time - there's no reason why we can't do it in other endeavors.”

ThinkingReasonUseProblemLevelsNumbersBrainShareInformationHugeCleverReason WhyJust OneNo ReasonEndeavorPoolHuge Numbers
Author:Lewis Thomas
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“The human brain is the most public organ on the face of the earth, open to everything, sending out messages to everything. To be sure, it is hidden away in bone and conducts internal affairs in secrecy, but virtually all the business is the direct result of thinking that has already occurred in other minds.”

ThinkingMindHumansEarthFacesResultsBrainMessagesDirectAffairBonesInternalsOrgansSecrecyHuman BrainInternal Affairs
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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“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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