Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Hal Whitehead

Quote by Hal Whitehead

“Conversation with animals could happen, but I think it would be easier for it to happen with creatures we share a bit more with - those that have been bred to interact with us, like dogs or horses, or ones to whom we have a natural evolutionary link, like chimps and other nonhuman apes. I mean, we do communicate with dolphins and whales, but we're not trying to get to the depths of their understandings. I feel that with animals as different from us as the whales and dolphins, it's likely to work better with us just watching them and trying to figure them out.”

Quote by Hal Whitehead

Create image

Author

Hal Whitehead
Hal Whitehead

Hal Whitehead is a renowned marine biologist, born on July 29, 1952. His research focuses on the behavior of whales, particularly the social structures and migration patterns of humpback whales. Professor Whitehead's work is significant in understanding the social behavior and ecology of whales. more

You May Also Like

“It's a common perception that science and religion are mutually exclusive. But there are many scientists who would consider themselves to be spiritual people. Not only that, but in the case of climate change - a scientific issue with strong moral implications and difficult decisions to be made - it's essential to connect the science to our values. And for many of us, our values come from our faith.”

PeopleSpiritualValuesStrongDifficultDecisionCommonMoralPerceptionScientistClimate ChangeScience And Religion
Author:Katharine Hayhoe
Create image

“There is also a great deal of behind-the-scenes pressure from political funders too. And by funders I don't just mean the fossil fuel industry. Many of those exerting pressure on our society to ignore climate change, oppose climate change legislation, and shut down efforts to develop a clean energy economy are doing so out of ideology, not just economics. In the simplest terms, many large industries don't want the government telling them what to do with their businesses and they don't want any restrictions on what they can and cannot do, which includes polluting our shared environment.”

MeanPoliticalEnergyTermEffortEconomyEnvironmentClimate ChangeIdeologyFossil FuelClean Energy
Author:Katharine Hayhoe
Create image

“I'm often a little perplexed, when I read a review of a book, by the quotes that are pulled out as evidence of excellent prose. I don't think great novels are necessarily composed of great prose, or that there's a correlation between beautiful prose and the quality of a work of fiction. A really good, interesting novel will often let a little ugliness get into its words - to create a certain effect, to leave the reader with a certain sense of disorientation.”

ThinkingBookBeautifulInterestingQualityNovelEvidenceExcellentProseUglinessPerplexed
Author:Katie Kitamura
Create image

“I don't speak any languages well enough to make an expert assessment on writing in translation, but since I'm interested in awkwardness in prose, I find I like the way translated texts can sometimes acquire awkwardness in the process of translation. There's a discordance translation can create which I think is sometimes seen as a weakness but which I think can be a really interesting aspect of the text.”

ThinkingWritingSometimesEnoughSpeakLanguageInterestingWeaknessProseTranslationsReally InterestingAwkwardness
Author:Katie Kitamura
Create image

“Translated literature can be fascinating. There's something so intriguing about reading the text second hand - a piece of prose that has already been through an extra filter, another consciousness, in the guise of the translator. Some of my favorite writers who have written in English were doing so without English being their first language, so there's a sense of distance or of distortion there, too. Conrad. Nabokov. These writers were employing English in interesting ways.”

ReadingLiteratureLanguageInterestingConsciousnessDistanceMy FavoriteExtrasProseIntriguingTranslators
Author:Katie Kitamura
Create image