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Homo Sapiens Quotes

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Homo Sapiens Quotes

“Each day as I travel through downtown Tucson, I am amazed at how quickly the most ancient of human behaviors have changed. For as long as there have been Homo sapiens - roughly 200,000 years - people have filled their lives principally with two activities: talking directly with other people, and doing physical things.”

PeopleYearsHumansLongHas BeensTwoTalkingChangedActivityBehaviorFilledAncientEach DayAmazedHuman BehaviorHomo SapiensDowntownPhysical ThingsTucson
Author:Andrew Weil
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“In prehistoric times, Homo sapiens was deeply endangered. Early humans were less fleet of foot, with fewer natural weapons and less well-honed senses than all the predators that threatened them. Moreover, they were hampered in their movements by the need to protect their uniquely immature young - juicy meals for any hungry beast.”

NeedsHumansWellsYoungNaturalFeetMovementProtectWeaponsSensesHungryMealsBeastFewerThreatenedHomo SapiensPredatorImmatureJuicyPrehistoricBeing ImmatureMature And ImmaturePrehistoric Times
Author:Robert Winston
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“The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.”

IfsWantDoeRealReligionUniverseFoundReligiousPrayerLordGoneCreationIndustryConceptsEvidenceNotionRidiculousProductiveRulersFlatteryAdorationHomo SapiensLord God
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“If I had my life to live over again I would not devote it to develop new industrial processes: I would try to add my humble efforts to use Science to the betterment of the human race. I despair of the helter-skelter methods of our vaulted homo sapiens, misguided by his ignorance and his politicians. If we continue our ways, there is every possibility that the human race may follow the road of former living races of animals whose fossils proclaim that they were not fit to continue. Religion, laws and morals is not enough. We need more. Science can help us.”

IfsWayNeedsTryingHumansMayEnoughHelpingUseLawScienceProcessAnimalEffortRaceMoralPossibilityHumilityIgnorancePoliticianFitDespairAccountsMethodAddHumbleFormerHuman RaceFossilsExtinctionHomo SapiensMisguidedBetterment
Author:Leo Baekeland
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“What a curious picture it is to find man, homo sapiens, of divine origin, we are told, seriously considering going underground to escape the consequences of his own folly. With a little wisdom and foresight, surely it is not yet necessary to forsake life in the fresh air and in the warmth of the sunlight. What a paradox if our own cleverness in science should force us to live underground with the moles.”

IfsMenShouldLittlesForceAirDivineConsequenceNuclearCuriousFollyBombsParadoxWarmthSunlightConsideringHomo SapiensForesightClevernessNuclear WarForsakeFresh AirMolesAtomic War
Author:J. William Fulbright
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“We have come to look at our planet as a resource for our species, which is funny when you think that the planet has been around for about five billion years, and Homo sapiens for perhaps one hundred thousand. We have acquired an arrogance about ourselves that I find frightening. We have come to feel that we are so far apart from the rest of nature that we have but to command.”

ThinkingFeelsYearsLooksHas BeensScienceNatureNaturalFivePlanetsThousandHundredResourcesSpeciesBillionsCommandArroganceFrighteningOur PlanetHomo Sapiens
Book:The Horace M. Albright Conservation Lectureship
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“We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

WorldShouldEndsEarthEnergyThirdsClimate ChangeLandscapeGlobal WarmingConsumptionSuicidalFossilsUnlikelyPlagueVirusesHomo SapiensThird WorldEnergy Consumption
Author:David Graeber
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“Aberjhani's writing blows the mind and frees the psyche of any rigid assumptions about ancestral heritage. Here, our collective experience is starkly rendered. The transparency of one culture overlays another, and another, to form the daguerreotype of possibilities that is homo sapiens, interacting, almost like the elements themselves, with the created world and modified only by context and its imperatives.”

WorldWritingMindFormCultureLiteraturePossibilityElementsBlowAssumptionCollectivesHeritageImperativesTransparencyHomo SapiensInteractingDaguerreotypes
Author:Rosy Cole
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“In the end I came to see that the true prophet of the modern world was Samuel Butler: when he suggested that the machine was an evolutionary development, destined to supersede man as the dominant species and reduce him to greenfly status, the status of machine-minder, homo mechanicus instead of homo sapiens; and to modify his nature accordingly.”

MenWorldEndsModernDevelopmentMachinesSpeciesProphetDominantDestinedModern WorldHomo SapiensButlers
Author:Robert Aickman
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“My favorite quote: The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”

WaterCommunityAnimalRolesLandCitizensMembersEthicsFellowsPlantMy FavoriteBoundariesSoilHomo SapiensConquerorPlants And Animals
Author:Aldo Leopold
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“Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids. In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest-lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time.”

KnowsShouldMayDoeHas BeensLightSeemsEyeFormThreeNaturalMillionsFourPlanetsMassHundredMereSpeciesBillionsNineDestroyedSixtyCatastropheExtinctionHomo SapiensUnreasonableBlinkWantonAsteroidsMass Extinction
Book:The Children of Men
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“My single greatest challenge is to remain centered and loving in an overwhelmingly nonvegan world. In today's world, cruelty and exploitation of other beings - human and non-human alike - are accepted, practiced, and profited from by most every institution of society - from commerce and science to education and entertainment. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Homo sapiens are either unaware of the cruelty or accept it as unavoidable and even normal.”

WorldHumansTodayChallengesAcceptingNormalInstitutionsMajorityEntertainmentAcceptedCrueltyVegetarianCommerceExploitationBeing HumanHomo SapiensToday's World
Author:Michael Klaper
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“Possibly, over the course of time, the brain capacity of homo sapiens will have made such great progress, that complications as contained in this game can be fathomed instantly with a shrug and a smile. Then, not only will the game of chess have ceased to exist, but also will the remembrance of frequently missed objectives elicit pity, as a reaction to the shortcomings of a lower organized form of life.”

MadeFormCoursesGamesBrainProgressCapacityChessReactionsObjectivesPityOrganizedRemembranceShortcomingsHomo SapiensComplicationGreat Progress
Author:Lodewijk Prins
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“It must be stressed that there is nothing insulting about looking at people as animals. We are animals, after all. Homo sapiens is a species of primate, a biological phenomenon dominated by biological rules, like any other species. Human nature is no more than one particular kind of animal nature. Agreed, the human species is an extraordinary animal; but all other species are also extraordinary animals, each in their own way, and the scientific man-watcher can bring many fresh insights to the study of human affairs if he can retain this basic attitude of evolutionary humility.”

PeopleIfsMenWayHumansKindAnimalAttitudeStudyHuman NatureHumilityParticularSpeciesExtraordinaryAffairInsightPhenomenonStressedInsultingHomo SapiensHuman SpeciesWatchersPrimates
Book:Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior
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“A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens-second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths.”

NeedsStoriesHomeSoundSilenceMillionsOur LivesEventsEssentialsOppositesAccountsSpeciesNarrativeShelterDominantConstructsNourishmentHomo SapiensWithout LovePsychopath
Book:A common room: essays, 1954-1987
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“Human beings are not inevitable, and our brief existence is not preordained to be extended into the distant future. If Homo sapiens is to have a continued presence on earth, humankind will reevaluate its sense of place in the world and modify its strong species-centric stewardship of the planet. Our collective concepts of morality and ethics have a direct impact on our species' ultimate fate.”

IfsWorldHumansEarthStrongHuman BeingsExistenceFatePlanetsMoralityEthicsConceptsDirectUltimateImpactSpeciesAtheistInevitableCollectivesHumankindStewardshipHomo SapiensPlaces In The WorldSense Of PlaceMorality And Ethics
Author:Jeff Schweitzer
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“Every culture from the Egyptians to the Mayans to the American Indians to the Bedouins created bestiaries that enabled them to express their relationship with nature. Ashes and Snow is a 21st-century bestiary filled with species from around the world. Nature’s orchestra includes not just Homo sapiens but elephants, whales, manatees, eagles, cheetahs, orangutans, and many others.”

WorldCultureCenturyFilledSpeciesSnowAround The WorldAshes21st CenturyElephantsOrchestraEaglesWhalesHomo SapiensAmerican IndianCheetahsOrangutansMayans
Author:Gregory Colbert
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“The paradox of the human condition is expressed more in education than elsewhere in human culture, because learning to learn has been and continues to be Homo Sapiens' most formidable evolutionary task... It must also be clear that we will never quite learn how to learn, for since Homo Sapiens is self-changing, and since the more culture changes the faster it changes, man's methods and rate of learning will never quite keep pace with his need to learn.”

MenNeedsHumansHas BeensSelfCultureClearConditionsTasksExperienceMethodRateFasterParadoxPaceHuman ConditionElsewhereNever QuitHomo SapiensFormidableCulture Change
Author:Jules Henry
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“The function of education has never been to free the mind and the spirit of man, but to bind them; and to the end that the mind and spirit of his children should never escape, Homo Sapiens has employed praise, ridicule, admonition, accusation, mutilation, and even torture to chain them to the culture pattern.”

MenShouldMindChildrenEndsSpiritCultureFreedomLibertyFunctionPraisePatternsChainsTortureEmployedRidiculeHomo SapiensAccusationAdmonitionMutilation
Author:Jules Henry
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“If humans one day become extinct from a catastrophic collision, there would be no greater tragedy in the history of life in the universe. Not because we lacked the brain power to protect ourselves but because we lacked the foresight. The dominant species that replaces us in post-apocalyptic Earth just might wonder, as they gaze upon our mounted skeletons in their natural history museums, why large headed Homo sapiens fared no better than the proverbially peabrained dinosaurs.”

IfsHumansMightWould BeEarthUniverseNaturalBrainWonderGreaterWalkingOne DayMoonProtectTragedySpeciesPostsMuseumsDominantDinosaursHomo SapiensForesightSkeletonsStar GazingApocalypticCollisionNatural HistoryPost ApocalypticBrain PowerHistory Of Life
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
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