Quotessence
Home / Topics / Evolution Quotes

Evolution Quotes

Browse 3937 quotes about Evolution.

Related topics

Evolution Quotes

“In my opinion, neither organisms nor organizations evolve slowly and surely into something better, but drift until some small change occurs which has immediate and overwhelming significance. The special role of the human being is not to wait for these favorable accidents but deliberately to introduce the small change that will have great significance.”

“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation forthe existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.”

“The human mind has a desire to know its place in the universe and the role we play in the tapestry of life. This is actually hardwired into our brains, the desire the know our relationship to the universe. This was good for our evolution, since it enabled us to see our relationship to others and to nature which was good for our survival. And it is also what drives our curiosity to understand the universe.”

“We no longer see the evolution of the nervous system, but that of a certain individual. The role of the memory is very important but... not as important as we believe. Most of the important things that we do don't depend on memory. To hear, to see, to touch, to feel happiness and pain; these are functions which are independent of memory; it is an a priori thing. Thus, for me, what memory does is to modify that a priori thing, and this it does in a very profound way.”

“On the one hand the world is getting more integrated and we should not dismiss social values as "Western" when they are actually modern values. On the other hand, individual countries have their own history and their own evolution. Trade unions, for example, don't play the same role in China as they do in Europe or the US.”

“Conscious parenting is a new paradign shift in the way we look at our roles as parents. It's turning the spot light away from fixing the child and managing the child, obsession with all things that have to do with the child and the child centric approach and really focusing on the evolution of the parent. It about fully understanding that unless the parent has raised themselves to a certain level of emotional integration and maturity, they will really not be able to do true service to the child's spirit.”

“Group selection and individual selection are just two of the selection processes that have played important roles in evolution. There also is selection within individual organisms (intragenomic conflict), and selection among multi-species communities (an idea that now is getting attention in work on the human microbiome). All four of these levels of selection find a place in multi-level selection theory.”

“If someone comes in without having been on a spiritual path for long, he or she still will understand what is happening to them in their human lives, what is happening through the evolution, how their humanness is playing such an important role at this time, and where they are in their lives with their inner feelings. It actually gives them a support system, a base from which they can start to evolve naturally within themselves through the understanding of our humanness, of our imperfection.”

“Two hundred years ago, we were all busy farming and we all had a role to play. The home was a unit of production. We made food and all the things we needed, we took care of our kids and were connected to purpose in our evolution. When the Industrial Revolution came along, it took away a lot of the work the men had done.”

“Aging is not 'lost youth,' but a new stage of opportunity and strength. It's a different stage of life, and if you are going to pretend it's youth, you are going to miss it. You are going to miss the surprises, the possibilities, and the evolution that we are just beginning to know about because there are no role models, no guideposts, and no signs.”

“Groups do not have experiences except insofar as all their members do. And there are no experiences... that all the members of a scientific community must share in the course of a [scientific] revolution. Revolutions should be described not in terms of group experience but in terms of the varied experiences of individual group members. Indeed, that variety itself turns out to play an essential role in the evolution of scientific knowledge.”

“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.”