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Genes Quotes

“We are, or rather our natural desire to evade pain and to attain pleasure is, the primary reason we do or say every single thing we do or say.”

PhilosophyHumorPainMotivationHumanityPleasureCompassionHumourEmpathyMercyCharityPhilosopherSelfishSelfishnessMotiveSatireSympathyGenesSelflessAltruismSelflessnessUnselfishSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaMotivesNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismMandelaGeneMother TeresaGhandiMahatma Ghandi
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“The pleasure or the benefit that the object of our deed derives from it is every now and then greater or even more important than the one we derive from the deed.”

PhilosophyHumorHumanityPleasureCompassionHumourEmpathyAdvantageMercyCharityPhilosopherSelfishSelfishnessSatireSympathyGenesSelflessAltruismSelflessnessUnselfishSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaBenefitNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismObjectMandelaGeneMother TeresaGhandiMahatma Ghandi
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“Females and boys are the only creatures that propose others for friendship. As for the rest of us, friendship sort of just happens.”

MenPhilosophyHumorHumanityGirlFriendshipCompassionBoysHumourEmpathyFemaleMercyCharityMalesPhilosopherSelfishManSelfishnessSatireGirlsSympathyGenesSelflessAltruismSelflessnessProposalProposeFriendshipsMaleUnselfishBoySatiristUnselfishnessTeresaFemalesNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismMandelaGeneMother TeresaGhandiMahatma Ghandi
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“In many cases, it was the woman’s stomach—not her heart—that fell for her man.”

MenLovePhilosophyHumorHumanityWomenLossCompassionMarriagePovertySecurityFoodHumourFailureLoversEmpathyMercyCharityPhilosopherDivorceDebtPartnersSelfishManSelfishnessWomanKitchenSatireOccupationStomachJobSympathyGenesSelflessNutritionLoverAltruismUnemploymentSelflessnessSpouseFailStarvationMortgagePartnerUnselfishSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaSpousesFeedNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismRentMandelaGeneMother TeresaRentalGhandiMahatma GhandiTummy
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“In some cases, it is the woman’s stomach—not her heart—that has left her man for another.”

MenLoveHeartPhilosophyHumorRomanceHumanityWomenLossCompassionMarriagePovertySecurityFoodHumourFailureLoversEmpathyMercyCharityPhilosopherDivorceDebtPartnersSelfishManSelfishnessWomanKitchenBreakupSatireOccupationStomachJobSympathyGenesSelflessNutritionLoverAltruismUnemploymentSelflessnessSpouseFailStarvationMortgageHeartsBreakupsPartnerUnselfishSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaSpousesFeedNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismRentMandelaGeneMother TeresaRentalGhandiMahatma GhandiTummy
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“Some of our friends are our friends only because we used to be friends.”

PhilosophyHumorPastHumanityFriendshipCompassionHumourFriendsEmpathyMercyCharityPhilosopherPartnersSelfishSeparationDenialSelfishnessSatireCompanionSympathyMatesGenesSelflessFriendAltruismAssociatesCompanionshipSelflessnessBuddyThe PastPartnerUnselfishPalsSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaMateCompanionsConfidantNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismMandelaGeneMother TeresaBuddiesAssociateGhandiMahatma GhandiConfidantsPal
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“In some rare cases, a friendship between two people benefits both of them, and what’s more, in some rarer cases, it benefits both of them equally.”

PhilosophyHumorHumanityRelationshipsFriendshipCompassionRelationshipHumourFriendsBenefitsEmpathyAdvantageMercyCharityRewardsPhilosopherEqualitySelfishSelfishnessSatireCompanionSympathyMatesGenesSelflessFairnessUnfairFriendAltruismCompanionshipSelflessnessConvenienceFriendshipsUnselfishRewardUnfairnessPalsSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaBenefitMateFairCompanionsNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismMandelaGeneMother TeresaAdvantagesGhandiMahatma GhandiPal
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“*Prostitution* is a euphemism for rape incidents that the victim and the economy profits from.”

PhilosophyHumorHumanityMoneyCompassionPovertyEconomyHumourEmpathyMercyVictimCharityProfitPhilosopherSelfishSelfishnessSatireSympathyGenesSelflessAltruismSelflessnessRapePaymentProstitutionUnselfishRewardVictimsSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaEuphemismTaxNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismProstitutesRapistsMandelaGeneMother TeresaRapistGhandiMahatma GhandiInfedelity
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“A study from New York's Mount Sinai Hospital found that genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors were capable of being passed on to their children. Our genes change all the time when chemical tags attach themselves to the DNA and turn genes on or off. The study found that some of these tags--found in the genes of those survivors -- were also found in their children. The changes led to an increased incidence of stress disorders. This passing down of environmentally altered genes is called *epigenetic inheritance.*”

StressTraumaGenesGeneticsHolocaust Survivors
Book:Aftershocks
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“There is a theoretical framework that explains ethnocentrism. As the Belgian authority on ethnic relations Pierre L. van den Berghe put it more than 25 years ago, “The degree of cooperation between organisms can be expected to be a direct function of the proportion of the genes they share; conversely, the degree of conflict between them is an inverse function of the proportion of shared genes.” Van den Berghe used the word “organisms” because he found this principle true in animals as well as people. When there is great genetic distance between strangers—in the case of humans, when they are of different races—conflicts are sharper. It is easy to understand the first part of van den Berghe’s proposition. People everywhere make great sacrifices for their families. The evolutionary explanation is that everyone shares more copies of his distinctive genes with close kin than with strangers. All forms of life can be viewed as striving to pass on their genes to future generations. Each individual therefore has a “genetic interest” in close relatives, which helps explain solidarity and cooperation within families.”

RaceEvolutionDiversityBiologyGenesOrganismsEthnocentrism
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“The problem with racial discrimination, though, is not the inference of a person's race from their genetic characteristics. It is quite the opposite: it is the inference of a person's characteristics from their race. The question is not, can you, given an individual's skin color, hair texture, or language, infer something about their ancestry or origin. That is a question of biological systematics -- of lineage, taxonomy, of racial geography, of biological discrimination. Of course you can -- and genomics as vastly refined that inference. You can scan any individual genome and infer rather deep insights about a person's ancestry, or place of origin. But the vastly more controversial question is the converse: Given a racial identity -- African or Asian, say -- can you infer anything about an individual's characteristics: not just skin or hair color, but more complex features, such as intelligence, habits, personality, and aptitude? /I/ Genes can certainly tell us about race, but can race tell us anything about genes? /i/ To answer this question, we need to measure how genetic variation is distributed across various racial categories. Is there more diversity _within_ races or _between_ races? Does knowing that someone is of African versus European descent, say, allow us to refine our understanding of their genetic traits, or their personal, physical, or intellectual attributes in a meaningful manner? Or is there so much variation within Africans and Europeans that _intraracial_ diversity dominates the comparison, thereby making the category "African" or "European" moot? We now know precise and quantitative answers to these questions. A number of studies have tried to quantify the level of genetic diversity of the human genome. The most recent estimates suggest that the vast proportion of genetic diversity (85 to 90 percent) occurs _within_ so-called races (i.e., within Asians or Africans) and only a minor proportion (7 percent) within racial groups (the geneticist Richard Lewontin had estimated a similar distribution as early as 1972). Some genes certainly vary sharply between racial or ethnic groups -- sickle-cell anemia is an Afro-Caribbean and Indian disease, and Tay-Sachs disease has a much higher frequency in Ashkenazi Jews -- but for the most part, the genetic diversity within any racial group dominates the diversity between racial groups -- not marginally, but by an enormous amount. The degree of interracial variability makes "race" a poor surrogate for nearly any feature: in a genetic sense, an African man from Nigria is so "different" from another man from Namibia that it makes little sense to lump them into the same category.”

RaceEvolutionDiversityRacismGenesAnthropologyGenetics
Book:The Gene: An Intimate History
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“The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled. It is from the progeny of this parent cell that we take our looks; we still share genes around, and the resemblance of the enzymes of grasses to those of whales is a family resemblance.”

LifeScienceEvolutionDiversityBiologyChemistryGenesAstonishingUniformityOrigin Of LifeCommon AncestorUniversal Common Ancestor
Book:The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
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“I just wanted to thank you," he says, his voice low. "A group of scientists told you that my genes were damaged, that there was something wrong with me - they showed you test results that proved it. And I even started to believe it." He touches my face, his thumb skimming my cheekbone, and his eyes on mine, intense and insistent. "You never believed it," he says. "Not for a second. You always insisted that I was... I don't know, whole." I cover his hand with my own. "Well, you are." "No one has ever told me that before," he says softly. "It's what you deserve to hear," I say firmly, my eyes going cloudy with tears. "That you're whole, that you're worth loving, that you're the best person I've ever known.”

WholeGenesTobiasTrisBest PersonAllegiant
Book:Allegiant
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“Every single good person is a good person for their own sake, not for the sake of humanity, not even for the sake of another human being.”

PhilosophyHumorHumanityCompassionHumourEmpathyMercyCharityPhilosopherGoodSelfishnessSatireSympathyGenesAltruismSelflessnessUnselfishnessTeresaNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismMandelaGeneMother TeresaGhandiMahatma Ghandi
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“To label someone as selfless is symptomatic of having bought the preposterous claim that a human being can have great concern for other human beings and little concern for themselves, or that, when taken to extremes, a human being can have great concern for other human beings and absolutely no concern for themselves.”

PhilosophyHumorHumanityCompassionHumourEmpathyConcernMercyCharityPhilosopherSelfishnessSatireSympathyGenesAltruismSelflessnessSymptomsSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismMandelaGeneMother TeresaLabelGhandiMahatma Ghandi
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“It is humanly impossible to be selfless. As a matter of fact, human beings are inherently selfish.”

PhilosophyHumorHumanityCompassionImpossibleHumourEmpathyMercyCharityPhilosopherSelfishSelfishnessSatireSympathyGenesSelflessAltruismSelflessnessImpossibilityUnselfishSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismMandelaGeneMother TeresaGhandiMahatma Ghandi
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“She looked for any sign of the boy who'd taught her to whistle a hornpipe, who could palm an ace of hearts and make it reappear from her sleeve, but failed to find even a glimmer of him. Instead she saw Ida taking on a second life in the features of her only son, and for a quick heartbeat Jo was almost grateful for the scar tissue dimpled across her cheek, forehead, and chin. No one would ever be able to invade her face, she realized. She would always simply be herself, whether she liked it or not.”

LooksGrowing UpAppearanceGenes
Book:The Gilly Salt Sisters
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“Our genes still expect us to eat a higher fat diet; they still see agricultural foods (and modern foods such as sugar), as poisonous; they still see lack of sunlight and exercise as problematic. We haven't genetically adapted to modern life because there is no selection pressure in the civilised world.”

FoodGenesNutritionDietPaleo Diet
Book:The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation: A complete, step-by-step, gene reprogramming action plan
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“In middle age you no longer thought such thoughts about free choice. Then it came over you that from one grandfather you had inherited such and such a head of hair which looked like honey when it whitens or sugars in the jar; from another, broad thick shoulders; an oddity of speech from one uncle, and small teeth from another, and the gray eyes with darkness diffused even into the whites, and a wide-lipped mouth like a statue from Peru. Wandering races have such looks, the bones of one tribe, the skin of another. From his mother he had gotten sensitive feelings, a soft heart, a brooding nature, a tendency to be confused under pressure.”

FamilyChoiceGenes
Book:Seize the Day
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“He read what he could find—the distilled knowledge of hundreds of experts. He couldn’t follow all the physiology. The body had evolved to feel fear, hope, thrill, and peace in the presence of certain semi-ordered vibrations; no one knew why. It made no sense that a few staggered chords could make the brain love an unmet stranger or grieve for friends who hadn’t died. Nobody could say why Barber moved listeners and Babbitt didn’t, or whether an infant might be raised to weep at Carter. But all the experts agreed that waves of compressed air falling on the eardrum touched off chain reactions that flooded the body in signals and even changed the expression of genes.”

BrainMusicGenes
Book:Orfeo
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“Language is the basis of culture and consciousness, so, once humans had language, they became capable of using culture to override biology (using memes to drive humanity rather than genes; using idea mutations rather than gene mutations) and thus freed humanity from animalism and instinct. The new dawn of consciousness, culture and knowledge had arrived.”

ChildrenPhilosophyConsciousnessUnconsciousAnimalsGenesMemesBicameralism
Book:Children See Dead People: Children's Spooky Powers
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“The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. This project is ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and ethically mandatory. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved only because they once served the fitness of our genes. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. The world's last aversive experience will be a precisely dateable event.”

ReasonPhilosophyScienceSufferingTechnologyFutureEthicsFitnessGenesRationalityHedonismGenetic EngineeringFeasibility
Author:David Pearce
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“A baby’s individual potential, whether they’re later diagnosed with a condition like PKU or a chromosomal change like Down syndrome, is impossible for anyone to predict from prenatal genetic testing alone. Each baby’s life journey will be unique. A combination of body, mind and spirit. Of the interactions between genes, environment and love.”

ParentingParentsPregnancyGenesDnaBabiesGeneticsChildbirthMedical Ethics
Book:When the Baby Is Not OK: Hopes & Genes
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“Evidence for this theory comes from the finding that every species seems to have a genetically determined maximum lifespan. While the average life expectancy for humans has increased, the maximum lifespan has remained stable (approximately 120 years). There is also research to suggest that at an early age, our genes trigger hormonal changes in the brain and regulate the cellular reproduction and repair process. At some point in the process, the genes that promote growth are 'switched off,' and those that promote aging are turned on. This leads to a steady decline in the functioning of the body until death occurs. One may see changes not only in physical functioning, but in the cognitive, emotional, and psychological domains as well.”

DeathBrainPsychologyAgingGenesHuman DevelopmentLifespan
Book:Psychology from the Islamic Perspective
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