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Selection Quotes

Browse 515 quotes about Selection.

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Selection Quotes

“It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection.”

MenTryingLongHouseProcessWaterAnimalImpossibleCenturyDogHundredCommandPerceiveSelectionEliminationBuffaloMooseLlamasWater Buffalo
Book:James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)
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“To live fully your well-read life -at any age- it is essential to take your selection of books seriously. When you drift from book to book, you're lulled into thinking that this lack of focus is right and natural - but it's as wrong as can be. Some serendipity in your reading is delightful, but if you wanted to build a house, would you wait for the materials to assemble themselves? - Steve Leveen”

IfsThinkingWellsBookAgeWantedReadingHouseWaitingNaturalFocusMaterialsEssentialsDelightfulSelectionSerendipity
Author:Pat Williams
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“I picked such seemingly disparate essays, I thought it was important to say what was the guiding principle in the selection rather than focus on any one essay. I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness. Authenticity and sincerity were the most important unifying principles of all these apparently different essays.”

ImportantDifferentConsciousnessPrinciplesFocusAuthenticitySinceritySubconsciousEssaysSelectionUnifyingGuiding Principles
Author:Alan Lightman
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“We're growing up with a very illiterate bunch of children who have somehow been taught that film is fact when, in fact, it's invention. Hopefully, an historical film will inspire people to go and read about the history but in the end it is a work of fiction and selection. As for the armour itself, no it wasn't particularly comfortable.”

PeopleChildrenEndsFactsFilmFictionGrowing UpGrowingInspireTaughtComfortableHistoricalInventionBunchHopefullySelectionIlliterateArmour
Author:Cate Blanchett
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“... if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being perserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offsping similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection.”

IfsIndividualStrongNaturalChancePrinciplesStruggleProduceSakePreservationSelectionInheritanceVariationNatural SelectionBrevity
Book:The Works of Charles Darwin: On the origin of species 1959
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“There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.”

HumansDoeSelfReasonEarthNaturalSimplePerfectToolsSpeciesInventionWorking ItSelectionOngoingNot PerfectNatural SelectionCorrectingCerebralMisusedHuman Inventions
Book:Cosmos
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“If we want to sum up the theory of evolution by natural selection in two words, which have great relevance for all societies and businesses, we should simply remember: diversity works.”

IfsWantShouldTwoRememberNaturalTheoryEvolutionDiversitySelectionRelevanceNatural SelectionTheory Of Evolution
Book:The 80/20 Principle and 92 Other Powerful Laws of Nature: The Science of Success
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“Time and again, my sociobiological colleagues have upbraided me as a turncoat, because I will not agree with them that the ultimate criterion for the success of a meme must be its contribution to Darwinian "fitness". At bottom, they insist, a "good meme" spreads because brains are receptive to it, and the receptiveness of brains is ultimately shaped by (genetic) natural selection.”

NaturalBrainUltimateAgreeBottomSpreadContributionColleaguesSelectionCriteriaNatural SelectionReceptiveMemesTurncoats
Book:The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene
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“We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded through reinforcement.”

FormCertainNaturalNovelTheoryBehaviorConsequenceAriseCharacteristicsSelectionNatural SelectionSelectedDiscardedMutationReinforcement
Book:Science And Human Behavior
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“Nowadays theologians aren't quite so straightforward as Paley. They don't point to complex living mechanisms and say that they are self-evidently designed by a creator, just like a watch. But there is a tendency to point to them and say 'It is impossible to believe' that such complexity, or such perfection, could have evolved by natural selection. Whenever I read such a remark, I always feel like writing 'Speak for yourself' in the margin.”

FeelsWritingBelieveSelfSpeakNaturalWatchesImpossiblePerfectionComplexesCreatorTendenciesComplexityMechanismSelectionTheologianRemarksMarginsStraightforwardNatural Selection
Book:The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design
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“If... deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the deception being practiced.' Thus, 'the conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view of mental evolution.”

IfsWorldSelfFactsTurnsStrongNaturalAnimalViewsProduceCommunicationOughtEvolutionDegreesFundamentalsFavorsNervousSpotsDeceptionMotiveUnconsciousSubtleDeceitBetrayAccurateConventionalSelf KnowledgeSelectionNaiveSelectSelf DeceptionNatural SelectionNervous SystemRendering
Author:Robert Trivers
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“We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable, I do not think, the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger.”

PeopleThinkingMadeEnoughJobsCoursesNationsDecisionDemocracyDangerSeriousRight NowCapableElectionMajorityCongressIgnorantPreservesVotingRepublicIncapablePresidencySelectionLegislaturePessimisticElectorateIgnorant PeopleAnchormanElection TimeIncapability
Author:Walter Cronkite
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“The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process - a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made - constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes - but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.”

MenMadeProcessDifferencesAttitudeTakenStreetsHe ManPaintingSkillsPhotographyPhotographInventionTraditionalSchemesSelectionSynthesis
Author:John Szarkowski
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“Success in science and scientific work come not through the provision of unlimited or big resources, but in the wise and careful selection of problems and objectives. Above all, what is required is hard sustained work and dedication.”

HardProblemBigsWiseResourcesCarefulObjectivesDedicationUnlimitedSelectionProvision
Book:Selected Speeches of Lal Bahadur Shastri: June 11, 1964 to January 10, 1966
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“We're all puppets, and our best hope for even partial liberation is to try to decipher the logic of the puppeteer. Just because natural selection created us doesn't mean we have to slavishly follow its peculiar agenda. (If anything, we might be tempted to spite it for all the ridiculous baggage it's saddled us with.)”

IfsTryingMeanMightNaturalLogicRidiculousLiberationSpiteAgendasPeculiarSelectionTemptedPuppetsNatural SelectionBaggageHoping For The BestDecipherPuppeteer
Author:Robert Wright
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“We are divided between those who think with their heads and those who know with their heart. Consider Harriet Miers. If you think about Harriet Miers, of course her nomination is absurd. But the President didn't say he thought about his selection. He said this: "I know her heart." Notice how he said nothing about her brain? He didn't have to. He feels the truth about Harriet Miers.”

IfsThinkingKnowsFeelsHeartSaidCoursesPresidentBrainAbsurdDividedSelectionNominations
Author:Stephen Colbert
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“Even a fellow with a camera has his favourite subjects, as we can see looking through the Kodak-albums of our friends. One amateur prefers the family group, another bathing scenes, another cows upon an alp, or kittens held upside down in the arms of a black-faced child. The tendency to choose one subject rather than another indicates the photographer's temperament. Nevertheless, his passion is for photography rather than for selection, a kitten will serve when no cows are available.”

ChildrenPassionBlackGroupsSubjectsArmsScenePhotographyCamerasFellowsPhotographerAlbumsAvailableTendenciesCowsFavouriteNeverthelessSelectionTemperamentUpside DownKittenBathingAlpsKodak
Author:E. M. Forster
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