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Quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero

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Marcus Tullius Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a prominent philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, and writer during the late Roman Republic. The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown, but he was active in the 1st century BC. Known for his profound thoughts and exceptional literary style, Cicero has had a lasting impact on Western culture. more

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“Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball that revolves about a small star at the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy. ... I am absolutely amazed to discover myself on this rock ball rotating around a spherical fire. It's a very odd situation. And the more I look at things I cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird.”

MenLooksLittlesFeelingsEarthScienceStarsExistenceSituationSunFireRocksOrdinaryBallsOddAmazedGalaxyUnimportantGermsRotating
Author:Alan Watts
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“Most educated people are aware that we are the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun’s demise, 6 billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.”

PeopleThinkingYearsHumansDifferentScienceDifferencesExistenceWatchesSunCreaturesBillionsEducatedOutcomesSelectionHalfwayDemiseBacteriaCulmination
Author:Martin Rees
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“No physiologist who calmly considers the question in connection with the general truths of his science, can long resist the conviction that different parts of the cerebrum subserve different kinds of mental action. Localization of function is the law of all organization whatever: separateness of duty is universally accompanied with separateness of structure: and it would be marvellous were an exception to exist in the cerebral hemispheres.”

KindLongDifferentWould BeActionLawScienceExistenceDutyConnectionsOrganizationAccountsFunctionStructureCalmConvictionExceptionDifferent KindsMarvellousCerebralHemisphereSeparateness
Author:Herbert Spencer
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“Of what use are the great number of petrifactions, of different species, shape and form which are dug up by naturalists? Perhaps the collection of such specimens is sheer vanity and inquisitiveness. I do not presume to say; but we find in our mountains the rarest animals, shells, mussels, and corals embalmed in stone, as it were, living specimens of which are now being sought in vain throughout Europe. These stones alone whisper in the midst of general silence.”

DifferentUseFormScienceAnimalNumbersExistenceSilenceShapesMountainEuropeStonesSpeciesVanityVainCollectionsMidstShellsSheerFossilsNaturalist
Author:Carl Linnaeus
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“One should not understand this compulsion to construct concepts, species, forms, purposes, laws ('a world of identical cases') as if they enabled us to fix the real world; but as a compulsion to arrange a world for ourselves in which our existence is made possible:-we thereby create a world which is calculable, simplified, comprehensible, etc., for us.”

IfsWorldShouldMadeRealFormLawSciencePurposeUnderstandingExistenceCasesConceptsSpeciesSimplicityEtcReal WorldConstructsCompulsionIdentical
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Placed as the fossils are in their several tiers of burial-places the one over the other; we have in them true witnesses of successive existences, whilst the historian of man is constantly at fault as to dates and even the sequence of events, to say nothing of the contradicting statements which he is forced to reconcile.”

MenScienceExistenceEventsFaultsStatementsWitnessHistorianFossilsSequenceReconcileBurialContradictingSequence Of Events
Author:Roderick Murchison
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