Quotessence
Home / Topics / Evolution Quotes

Evolution Quotes

Browse 3937 quotes about Evolution.

Related topics

HumansIfsMenScienceThinkingWorldTheoryProcessBelievePeopleSpeciesKnowsYearsNaturalWayFactsHas BeensProgressUniverseCreationMindIdeasMayTheory Of EvolutionConsciousnessFirstsDoeEvolveMeanEarthWellsWholeAnimalFormIndividualNeedsHuman EvolutionWantAtheismSpiritualTwoShouldDifferentSelectionMatterKindLongDesignSocialNatural SelectionReasonImportantStillsEvidenceHigherLawMadeBrainDevelopmentGivingReligionViewsTryingCoursesHuman BeingsLooksPlanetsProductsSeemsStatesI BelieveSurvivalRealStageNextProblemSoulTermUnderstandingUseWould BeExistenceMillionsSelfTodayBiologyForceOrderConsciousCultureLevelsRaceBeliefEndsHumanityLittlesOrganismsResultsFeelsMightmore

Evolution Quotes

“We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act.”

WorldTwoFactsFormAnimalAtheismPlanetsEvolutionHigherDramaCreatorPositive AtheismPassingPassingsAtmosphereExplanationAspirationSoilSoarCreepsPropensityTwo Worlds
Book:The Martyrdom of Man
Create image

“Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future.”

MenGivingMayStillsFactsFeelingsDestinyPrideEvolutionHigherScalesSummitRisenExertionOrigin Of Man
Book:The Descent of Man: Human Sexuality
Create image

“Aristotle especially, both by speculation and observation... reached something like the modern idea of a succession of higher organizations from lower, and made the fruitful suggestion of "a perfecting principle" in Nature. With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency toward a yet truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, but the old crude view remained.”

MadeIdeasChristianViewsPrinciplesModernTheoryEvolutionHigherOrganizationTheologyTendenciesObservationSuggestionsSpeculationSuccessionCrudeTheory Of EvolutionChristian Theology
Book:A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom: From Creation to the Victory of Scientific and Literary Methods
Create image

“If the positive innovations connect exponentially before the massive breakdowns reinforce one another, the system can re-pattern itself to a higher order of consciousness and freedom without the predicted economic, environmental, and social collapse...If the system could go either way, a slight intervention to assist the convergence of the positive can tip the scales of evolution in favor of the enhancement of life on Earth.”

IfsWayEarthOrderSocialConsciousnessEconomicEvolutionHigherInnovationHarmonyEnvironmentalPatternsFavorsScalesMassiveCollapseInterventionBreakdownConvergenceEnhancement
Author:Barbara Marx Hubbard
Create image

“was revolution much more than one fast kick forward in the long process called evolution? We condemened the 'cost' of revolution; but was it higher than the cost over centuries in backward, underdeveloped communities, which still covered two-thirds of the earth and which still could not guarantee their populations daily bread?”

LongStillsTwoEarthProcessCommunityCenturyRevolutionEvolutionHigherCostThirdsPopulationBreadKicksGuaranteesCoveredDaily Bread
Author:Ella Winter
Create image

“Moral improvement (or perfecting) require an evolution leading to a higher consciousness, which is the true torch of life; it is what we have failed too much to appreciate, and that which would be fatal to fail to appreciate any longer ("pluslongtemps", Fr.); For if we do not take it upon ourselves to remedy in time to the moral colapse (or bankruptcy) that already threaten, the whole civilisation will risks to disappear.”

IfsWholeWould BeConsciousnessMoralToo MuchFailingRiskEvolutionHigherAppreciateDisappearImprovementRemedyCivilisationTorchesBankruptcyHigher Consciousness
Author:African Spir
Create image

“Freedom is the very essence of life, the impelling force in all intellectual and social development, the creator of every new outlook for the future of mankind. The liberation of man from economic exploitation and from intellectual and political oppression, which finds its finest expression in the world-philosophy of Anarchism, is the first prerequisite for the evolution of a higher social culture and a new humanity.”

MenWorldFirstsPhilosophyPoliticalHumanityCultureForceSocialEconomicMankindExpressionDevelopmentEvolutionHigherIntellectualEssenceCreatorOppressionLiberationExploitationFinestOutlookAnarchismSocial DevelopmentPrerequisitesEssence Of LifePolitical OppressionFuture Of Mankind
Book:Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice
Create image

“In the complex course of its evolution, life exhibits a remarkable contrast to the tendency expressed in the Second Law to Thermodynamics. Where the Second Law expressed an irreversible progression toward increased entropy and disorder, life evolves continually higher levels of order. The still more remarkable fact is that this evolutionary drive to greater and greater order also is irreversible. Evolution does not go backward.”

DoeStillsFactsLawOrderCoursesLevelsGreaterEvolutionHigherComplexesTendenciesEvolveRemarkableDisorderContrastProgressionExhibitsHigher LevelEntropyIrreversibleThermodynamics
Author:J. H. Rush
Create image

“The thought of both East and West (philosophies) can indeed be integrated into a higher truth. They show us that the West is correct in maintaining that life is about progress about evolving toward something higher. Yet the East is also correct in emphasizing that we must let go of control with the ego. We can't progress by using logic alone. We have to attain a fuller consciousness, an inner connection with God, because only then can our evolution toward something better be guided by a higher part of ourselves.”

PhilosophyShowsLife IsConsciousnessProgressEvolutionHigherLetting GoEgoConnectionsLogicWestEastEvolveMaintainingSomething BetterIntegratedSelf ConsciousnessEast And WestCelestine Prophecy
Author:James Redfield
Create image

“The daily grinding of evolution, as accelerated by technology, churns out more and more complex organisms, with higher rates of energy use, and with increasing specialization. Minds are the ideal way to express complexity, energy density, increasing specialization, expanding diversity -- all in one system. Mindedness is what evolution produces. Mindedness is what technology wants, too.”

WayWantMindUseEnergyTechnologyProduceEvolutionHigherDiversityIdealsComplexesRateComplexityOrganismsExpandingDensitySpecializationEnergy Use
Author:Kevin Kelly
Create image

“Each of us is the next step in evolution along the lineage created by our two parents. Our higher purpose on earth can be found by recognizing what our parents accomplished and where they left off. By reconciling what they gave us with what they left us to resolve, we can get a clear picture of who we are and what we are meant to do.”

TwoEarthPurposeNextFoundLeftParentStepsClearEvolutionHigherWho We AreAccomplishedResolveRecognizingNext StepsLineageHigher PurposeCelestine Prophecy
Author:James Redfield
Create image

“The universe is continually at its work of restructuring itself at a higher, more complex, more elegant level. The novelty, the new, more complex order, doesn't emerge from the present in a steady stream, nor at all places at the same rate. It comes, as all things do, in rhythmic waves; there will always be times and places of scarcity and stagnation and retrogression. Still, the long-term direction is clear. The intention of the universe is evolution.”

LongStillsOrderUniverseTermLevelsClearEvolutionHigherAll ThingsIntentionComplexesRateWaveLong TermStreamsSteadyElegantNoveltyScarcityStagnationRestructuring
Book:The Silent Pulse
Create image

“Many people think the Pleiadians are in spirit form, but they're not. They exist as a civilization in the fifth/sixth dimensional evolution, which is unconditional love, so they hold a much higher frequency of evolution than we do here on the planet at this time, and they are here to really bring the knowledge, the understanding, and initiations for us to align back to our own personal power.”

PeopleThinkingFormSpiritUnderstandingPlanetsEvolutionHigherCivilizationUnconditional LoveFifthUnconditionalFrequencyPersonal PowerInitiation
Author:Christine McCormick Day
Create image

“There is no evolutionary pressure to create minds capable of forming sciences; it just happened. Evolutionary pressure has not led to higher rates of reproduction for people capable of solving scientific problems or creating new scientific ideas. So if, in fact, the science-forming capacities evolved for other reasons, it would not be too surprising if those particular structures that have developed proved to be rather special in their nature, reflecting the contingencies of their evolution or the working of physical law.”

PeopleIfsMindIdeasReasonFactsProblemLawHappenedSpecialParticularEvolutionHigherCreatingCapableCapacityPressureStructureRateSurprisingReflectingReproductionContingency
Author:Noam Chomsky
Create image

“We think we know that chimpanzees are higher animals and earthworms are lower, we think we've always known what that means, and we think evolution makes it even clearer. But it doesn't. It is by no means clear that it means anything at all. Or if it means anything, it means so many different things to be misleading, even pernicious.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMeanDifferentAnimalKnownClearEvolutionHigherDifferent ThingsMisleadPerniciousChimpanzees
Book:The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Create image

“We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher answer’– but none exists”

YearsMayAgeEarthReligionAnswersMillionsGroupsAtheismEvolutionHigherCreaturesYears AgoSpeciesAtheistFishesLegsIceOddPeculiarQuartersHookAnatomyCrooksIce AgeFins
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
Create image

“Every positive change - every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness - involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception.”

SpiritualityFoundEnergyChangeLevelsCourageAwarenessEvolutionHigherPeriodsExceptionPurpose Of LifePassagesLaddersDiscomfortHigher LevelRitePositive ChangeInitiationVery PositiveRite Of PassagePeaceful WarriorPersonal Evolution
Book:No Ordinary Moments: A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life
Create image

“Physio-philosophy has to show how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the Material took its origin; and, therefore, how something derived its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by self-evolution into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and in Man attained self-consciousness.”

MenWorldFirstsSelfPhilosophyShowsBodyFormLawScienceExistenceConsciousnessMaterialsDevelopmentEvolutionHigherPeriodsElementsMethodHeavenlySelf ConsciousnessMineralsManifoldHeavenly BodiesPhysio
Author:Lorenz Oken
Create image

“The doctrine of evolution implies the passage from the most organised to the least organised, or, in other terms, from the most general to the most special. Roughly, we say that there is a gradual 'adding on' of the more and more special, a continual adding on of new organisations. But this 'adding on' is at the same time a 'keeping down'. The higher nervous arrangements evolved out of the lower keep down those lower, just as a government evolved out of a nation controls as well as directs that nation.”

WellsGovernmentScienceNationsTermSpecialEvolutionHigherDoctrineNervousPassagesArrangementsOrganisationOrganised
Book:Selected Writings of John Hughlings Jackson: Evaluation and dissolution of the nervous system. Speech. Various papers, addresses and lectures
Create image

“If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution.”

IfsPainSpiritualSufferingGoalLevelsConsciousnessEvolutionHigherAdviseHigher LevelSpiritual Evolution
Book:The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth
Create image

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than the woman. Whether deep thought, reason, or imagination or merely the use of the senses and hands.....We may also infer.....The average mental power in man must be above that of woman.”

MenMayTwoReasonUseHandsSexImaginationEvolutionHigherIntellectualAverageSensesChiefsDistinctionDeep ThoughtEminenceMental Power
Author:Charles Darwin
Create image

“Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics, on which life depends, are in every respect deliberate.... It is, therefore, almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligence -even to the limit of God.”

ThinkingDependsEvolutionHigherLimitsPropertyPhysicsAbsurdInevitableSensibleProbabilityDeliberateOrigin Of Life
Author:Fred Hoyle
Create image

“For the production of man a different apprenticeship [from forests] was needed to sharpen the wits and quicken the higher manifestations of intellect - a more open veldt country where competition was keener between swiftness and stealth, and where adroitness of thinking played a preponderating role in the preservation of the species.”

ThinkingMenDifferentCountryRolesEvolutionNeededHigherCompetitionSpeciesProductionsIntellectWitForestsManifestationPreservationApprenticeshipStealthSwiftness
Author:Raymond Dart
Create image