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

“Jonathan Wells has done us all - the scientific community, educators, and the wider public - a great service. In Icons of Evolution he has brilliantly exposed the exaggerated claims and deceptions that have persisted in standard textbook discussions of biological origins for many decades, in spite of contrary evidence. these claims have been so often repeated that they seem unassailable - that is, until one reads Wells's book.”

WellsHas BeensBookDoneSeemsCommunityEvolutionStandardsEvidenceClaimsDecadesContraryDeceptionDiscussionSpiteExposedIconsEducatorTextbooksExaggeratedGreat Service
Author:Dean H. Kenyon
Create image

“Amazingly, much of the best cartoon work was done early on in the medium's history. The early cartoonists, with no path before them, produced work of such sophistication, wit, and beauty that it increasingly seems to me that cartoon evolution is working backward. Comic strips are moving toward a primordial goo rather than away from it . . . Not only can comics be more than we're getting today. but the comics already have been more than we're getting today.”

Has BeensDoneSeemsTodayMovingPathEvolutionWitMediumsComicCartoonSophisticationCartoonistComic Strips
Author:Bill Watterson
Create image

“For the whole consequence of evolution from blind impulse through conscious will to self conscious knowledge, seems still somehow to correspond to a continued result of births, rebirths and new births, which reach from the birth of the child from the mother, beyond the birth of the individual from the mass, to the birth of the creative work from the individual and finally to the birth of knowledge from the work.”

ChildrenStillsSelfWholeSeemsMotherIndividualResultsCreativeEvolutionBirthMassConsciousConsequenceBlindImpulseRebirthSelf ConsciousCreative Work
Book:journal
Create image

“The poetical tendency of the present and of the preceding century has been divided in a manner singularly curious. One loud and conspicuous faction of bards, giving way to the corrupt influences of a decaying general culture, seems to have abandoned all the properties of versification and reason in its mad scramble after sensational novelty; whilst the other and quieter school constituting a more logical evolution from the poesy of the Georgian period, demands an accuracy of rhyme and metre unknown even to the polished artists of the age of Pope.”

WayGivingHas BeensReasonSeemsAgeSchoolArtistCultureInfluenceCenturyEvolutionPeriodsDemandMadPropertyTendenciesCuriousLoudLogicalDividedAbandonedPopeRhymeNoveltyAccuracyPolishedFactionsSensationalBardsGiving WayGeorgians
Author:H. P. Lovecraft
Create image

“No one supposed that dinoflagellates might actively kill fish as an evolved response for their own specific advantage, including a potential nutritional benefit for the algal cells. And yet the dinoflagellates do seem to be killing and eating fishes in a manner suggesting active evolution for this most peculiar reversal.”

SeemsMightEvolutionBenefitsEatingAdvantageResponseKillingIncludingFishesActiveCellsPeculiarSuggestingReversal
Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History
Create image

“I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution , where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment... only to vanish forever.”

MomentsLightSeemsIndividualForeverEvolutionWaveComplicatedDelicateFlashOrganismsFringeGleamSparklingBiological EvolutionWave Of Life
Book:The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Create image

“Appealing to his [Einstein's] way of expressing himself in theological terms, I said: If God had wanted to put everything into the universe from the beginning, He would have created a universe without change, without organisms and evolution, and without man and man's experience of change. But he seems to have thought that a live universe with events unexpected even by Himself would be more interesting than a dead one.”

IfsMenWaySaidSeemsWould BeWantedUniverseTermInterestingEventsEvolutionUnexpectedOrganismsTheological
Book:Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography
Create image

“I can have little patience with those who oppose ... the theory of evolution or what are called "mechanistic" explanations of the phenomena of life because of certain moral consequences which at first seem to follow from these theories, and still less with those who regard it as irrelevant or impious to ask certain questions at all. By refusing to face the facts , the conservative only weakens his own position.”

FirstsLittlesStillsI CanFactsSeemsFacesCertainAsksMoralPositionTheoryEvolutionConsequenceRegardConservativeExplanationPhenomenonIrrelevantTheory Of Evolution
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
Create image

“Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series of gradations as this [step by step, from humans to apes to monkeys to lemurs] - leading us insensibly from the crown and summit of the animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the placental Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had forseen the arrogance of man, and with Roman severity had provided that his intellect, by its very triumphs, should call into prominence the slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is but dust.”

IfsMenShouldHumansSeemsOrderAnimalStepsCreationEvolutionCreaturesIntelligentSlaveSeriesExtraordinaryIntellectDustTriumphArroganceCrownsSmallestMonkeysLowestSummitApesConquerorMammalsSeverityProminenceLemurs
Author:Thomas Huxley
Create image

“There are some women who seem to be born without fear, just as there are people who are born without the ability to feel pain. The painless ones go around putting their hands on hot stoves, freezing their feet to the point of gangrene, scalding the lining of their throats with boiling coffee, because there is no warning anguish. Evolution does not favour them. So too perhaps with the fearless women, because there aren't very many of them around. ... Providence appears to protect such women, maybe out of astonishment.”

PeopleFeelsDoeHandsSeemsPainFearBornAbilityFeetEvolutionProtectHotCoffeeFearlessThroatWarningProvidenceAnguishFavourAstonishmentFreezingBoilingStovesPainless
Book:Bluebeard's Egg
Create image

“All that's known is this: there is no central processor, no single computer. Nothing that simple. Millions of neurons process information simultaneously and in parallel, not linearly, but the actual chemistry and electrical properties of that integrative process are still being mapped. Even so, it seems odd that during the evolution of brain circuitry and thinking, the ability to understand itself did not get wired in. Such built-in innocence seems like a terrible oversight.”

ThinkingMindStillsSeemsProcessSimpleAbilityBrainKnownMillionsInformationEvolutionTerribleComputerBuiltPropertyInnocenceOddChemistryParallelsElectricalNeuronsOversightProcessors
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“...Which brings me to the Hubble Space Telescope's newest images. If it's wonder that you're looking for, and mystery, don't just scan the photographs. Stop and think about them. Try to imagine the scale. The Earth is just a speck of dust on one distant whirling tentacle of the Milky Way galaxy, which contains billions of stars. A 'collision' of galaxies seems unimaginably large - and yet it is something scientists long ago imagined... The imaginings of pseudoscience are feeble by comparison.”

IfsThinkingWayTryingLongSeemsEarthStarsSpaceWonderImagineMysteryEvolutionScientistPhotographBillionsScalesDustComparisonLong AgoGalaxyTelescopesCollisionSpecksPseudoscienceMilky WayTentaclesHubbleHubble Space Telescope
Author:Mark Bowden
Create image

“As we blossom or awaken, we begin to notice there is a force in the world that seems to be operating and leading us into a certain destiny. And it's very much a kind of detective effort on our own part to figure out what these things mean. The synchronicity is essentially a meaningful coincidence that brings us information at just the right time. While leading us forward, it also feels very inspiring and destined in a way. It feels like we're on a path of unfolding in our own personal evolution.”

WorldWayFeelsKindMeanSeemsCertainForceEffortDestinyPathFiguresInformationEvolutionMeaningfulCoincidenceRight TimeDestinedDetectivesUnfoldingSynchronicityVery InspiringPersonal Evolution
Author:James Redfield
Create image

“In the tangled hierarchy sinner and saint, divine and diabolical, sacred and profane are different faces of our collective Being. Therefore angry activism driven by rage, however justified it seems, is really not going to work. I believe that the tangled hierarchy wants us to move to the next state of evolution and very strongly desires us to take that quantum leap of creativity.”

WantBelieveDifferentStatesSeemsFacesMovingDesireNextI BelieveCreativityDivineEvolutionAngrySacredSaintDrivenActivismRageCollectivesSinnerLeapVery StrongQuantumJustifiedGoing To WorkWant UHierarchyBeing ThereTangledProfaneDiabolicalQuantum LeapDifferent Faces
Author:Deepak Chopra
Create image

“I think we have got to start again and go right back to first principles. The argument I shall advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution. If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? ... Is he manuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?”

IfsThinkingMenFirstsMayMadeIdeasSeemsSportsEnjoyUnderstandingPrinciplesBloodModernTelevisionHe ManEvolutionArgumentBasesCreatorThrowingGenesSurprisingSoleChaptersTigersSpectatorsLambsRatingModern ManCheetahsGazelles
Book:The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition
Create image

“The idea of using media for expressing yourself artistically is kind of something I learned from my mother and my father. So for me, I think growing up wanting to be an artist, I always imagined myself sort of crossing over or mixing media and so it was a natural evolution for me to try to express in a filmic way or in a visual way. It just kind of seems like a natural sort of progression for me in terms of what I'm trying to do as an artist.”

ThinkingWayTryingKindIdeasSeemsMotherArtistFatherTermNaturalGrowing UpGrowingMediaEvolutionVisualsProgressionExpress YourselfCrossingsMixingUsing MeCrossing Over
Author:Sean Lennon
Create image

“The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”

LifeDoeGodSeemsMotivationalSpiritualLyingCertainReligionSpiritualityFearKnowledgePathAtheismMankindEvolutionBlindStriveAtheistGenuineRationalScience And ReligionFear Of DeathReligious FaithRelativitySpiritual PathRational ThinkingAtheisticSpirit Of GodBlind FaithReligion GodGod LifeKnowledge Of GodScience ReligionFears Of LifeMore KnowledgeReligious LifeMorality And ReligionSpiritual EvolutionFaith ReligionGod And ScienceScience GodSpiritual KnowledgeGreatest AtheistHave Faith In GodCertain DeathCertain KnowledgeAdvances In ScienceSpiritual FaithGod And LifeGod Is RealGenuine Life
Book:Ideas and Opinions
Create image

“But while everything around us seems to be in a constant state of flux- people at their very core remained exactly the same. All of us still seeking the things we've sought all along—shelter, food, love, greater meaning—" He shakes his head. "A quest that's immune to evolution.”

PeopleStillsStatesSeemsGreaterEvolutionConstantSeekingCoreShakesQuestsShelterImmuneFluxFood Love
Book:The Immortals Bundle 1-3: The Immortals: Evermore, The Immortals: Blue Moon and The Immortals: Shadowland
Create image

“Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; ... 'So careful of the type', but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go' ... Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law- Tho' Nature red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed.”

MenDreamSeemsEyeCareLastsLawSciencePurposeEvilNaturePrayerGoneSkyCryCreationTypeEvolutionThousandBuiltRedFairsStonesAnd LoveFinalsCarefulTeethHis EyesCreedsTrustedI CareStrifeSplendidCliffsCarelessClawsSingle LifePsalmsGod And Nature
Author:Alfred Lord Tennyson
Create image

“If we look round the world, there seem to be not above six distinct varieties in the human species, each of which is strongly marked, and speaks the kind seldom to have mixed with any other. But there is nothing in the shape, nothing in the faculties, that shows their coming from different originals; and the varieties of climate, of nourishment, and custom, are sufficient to produce every change.”

IfsWorldHumansLooksKindDifferentShowsSeemsScienceSpeakProduceEvolutionShapesSixOriginalsClimateSpeciesRoundsVarietySufficientFacultyCustomsNourishmentHuman Species
Book:A History of the Earth, and Animated Nature
Create image

“To produce a really good biological theory one must try to see through the clutter produced by evolution to the basic mechanisms lying beneath them, realizing that they are likely to be overlaid by other, secondary mechanisms. What seems to physicists to be a hopelessly complicated process may have been what nature found simplest, because nature could only build on what was already there.”

TryingMayHas BeensSeemsScienceLyingFoundProcessNatureRealizingProduceTheoryEvolutionSimplicityComplicatedBiologyMechanismSimplestPhysicistClutter
Author:Francis Crick
Create image

“The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate.”

MayHas BeensSeemsLawUniverseDifficultCasesFateMastersEvolutionDeterminedChosenFree WillInitialsConfigurationChosen By God
Author:Stephen Hawking
Create image

“But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice.”

WorldShouldPlaySeemsWishSidesToo MuchAtheismDesignEvolutionEvidenceCatMiserySpeciesPositive AtheismMiceNatural SelectionAgnosticismOmnipotentBeneficence
Book:Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution
Create image

“The universe and the Laws of Physics seem to have been specifically designed for us. If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist: Either atoms would not be stable, or they wouldn't combine into molecules, or the stars wouldn't form heavier elements, or the universe would collapse before life could develop, and so on...”

IfsKnowsHas BeensDifferentSeemsFormLawValuesUniverseStarsQualityEvolutionElementsPhysicsAtomsStableCollapseMoleculesLaws Of PhysicsDifferent Values
Author:Stephen Hawking
Create image

“What is striking is these things [patterns in nature, e.g. fish stripes] do look like something that has been crafted. We are conditioned to think that a pattern needs a patterner and so at first glance it seems incredible to us that nature is able to do this, without any sort of blueprint, without any sort of plan. These patterns organise themselves, that is the amazing thing.”

ThinkingNeedsFirstsLooksHas BeensSeemsAblePlansEvolutionIncrediblesPatternsFishesGlancesLike SomethingAmazing ThingsBlueprintsStripes
Author:Philip Ball
Create image

“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities... If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.”

IfsMenWorldWayMeanSeemsIndividualWishResultsChildhoodEvolutionPsychologicalMaturityLastingCivilizedParallelsAcquisitionNeurosisSensory
Author:Sigmund Freud
Create image