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Snail Quotes

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Snail Quotes

“What really grabs me is when a reader writes to express her personal story and how a book helped her situation, or her acceptance of a situation she can't change. I read some sad cases in my snail and electronic mail. I respond to all I can, affirming that they are the true heroes of life because they are fighting through adversity and surviving.”

WritingI CanBookStoriesFightingSituationCasesAcceptanceReaderHeroAdversityMailSurvivingCan't ChangeAffirmingSnailPersonal StoriesTrue HeroFighting Through
Author:Lurlene McDaniel
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“Will you walk a little faster? said a whiting to a snail, "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail! See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance: They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance?”

LittlesSaidWaitingWalksBehindsFasterTailsTurtlesSnailLobsterAlice Adventures In WonderlandTreadingPorpoisesShingles
Book:Alice in Wonderland Collection: All Four Books: All Four Books
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“In the end, science as we know it has two basic types of practitioners. One is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail's eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ. The second kind of observer is the extreme reductionist who is so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle, to intangibles not worth troubling one's head about.”

KnowsMenKindHas BeensStillsTwoEndsLightEyeScienceWonderMysteryTypeUniversalBusyExtremesEducatedControlledDelicateOrgansObserversTriflesSense Of WonderSnailStrippingEducated Man
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“It is so hard for an evolutionary biologist to write about extinction caused by human stupidity. Let me then float an unconventional plea, the inverse of the usual argument. The extinction of Partula is unfair to Partula. That is the conventional argument, and I do not challenge its primacy. But we need a humanistic ecology as well, both for the practical reason that people will always touch people more than snails do or can, and for the moral reason that humans are legitimately the measure of all ethical questions for these are our issues, not nature's.”

PeopleNeedsWritingHumansWellsHardReasonChallengesMoralIssuesArgumentLet MeStupidityPracticalsEthicalUsualConventionalUnfairEcologyExtinctionFloatsBiologistUnconventionalSnailHumanisticInversePrimacyHuman StupidityEthical Questions
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“I contend that the continued racial classification of Homo sapiens represents an outmoded approach to the general problem of differentiation within a species. In other words, I reject a racial classification of humans for the same reasons that I prefer not to divide into subspecies the prodigiously variable West Indian land snails that form the subject of my own research.”

HumansReasonProblemFormMy OwnLandSubjectsApproachResearchWestSpeciesIndianRejectsDividesHomo SapiensVariablesClassificationSnailDifferentiation
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“My body, now close to fifty years of age, has become an old tree that bears bitter peaches, a snail which has lost its shell, a bagworm separated from its bag; it drifts with the winds and clouds that know no destination. Morning and night I have eaten traveler's fare, and have held out for alms a pilgrim's wallet.”

KnowsYearsBodyAgeNightLostMorningTreeWindBearsCloudsBitterFiftyBagsDestinationShellsTravelerPilgrimWalletsPeachesSnailAlmsOld TreesMorning And Night
Author:Matsuo Basho
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“Moss grows where nothing else can grow. It grows on bricks. It grows on tree bark and roofing slate. It grows in the Arctic Circle and in the balmiest tropics; it also grows on the fur of sloths, on the backs of snails, on decaying human bones. ... It is a resurrection engine. A single clump of mosses can lie dormant and dry for forty years at a stretch, and then vault back again into life with a mere soaking of water.”

YearsHumansLyingGrowsWaterTreeMereBonesCirclesDryFortyBiologyEnginesResurrectionBricksFurBarkBack AgainSlothMossSlateArcticDormantSnailVaultsSoakingTropicsRoofing
Book:The Signature of All Things
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“The tourist travels in his own atmosphere like a snail in his shell and stands, as it were, on his own perambulating doorstep to look at the continents of the world. But if you discard all this, and sally forth with a leisurely and blank mind, there is no knowing what may not happen to you.”

IfsWorldMindLooksMayHappensKnowingAtmosphereContinentsShellsBlankTouristsDoorstepSnailBlank Mind
Book:Baghdad Sketches: Journeys Through Iraq
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“The French are not rude. They just happen to hate you. But that is no reason to bypass this beautiful country, whose master chefs have a well-deserved worldwide reputation for trying to trick people into eating snails. Nobody is sure how this got started. Probably a couple of French master chefs were standing around one day, and they found a snail, and one of them said: 'I bet that if we called this something like `escargot,' tourists would eat it.' Then they had hearty laugh, because 'escargot' is the French word for 'fat crawling bag of phlegm.'”

PeopleIfsTryingWellsSaidCountryReasonHappensBeautifulHateFoundLaughingMastersCoupleOne DayEatingStandingTricksFatsReputationBagsNo ReasonCulinaryChefRudeHate YouTouristsCrawlingSnailBypassHeartyBeautiful CountryEscargot
Book:Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need
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“Grandpa did everything at his own pace, a speed that my sister and I referred to as 'when snails attack.' ... My grandparents' house was only about ten miles from ours, but the ride there would necessitate sandwiches packed for the trip, and several books to keep us occupied.”

BookHouseTenSpeedMilesPaceMy SisterGrandparentSandwichesGrandpaSnailGrandparents House
Book:Let's Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir)
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“How dominating is appetite, how enveloping immediate experience! Even the philosophically minded among us capitulate, ultimately, to the narrowest sense of personal need. Political time moves at a snail's pace because it is only with nearly insurmountable difficulty that moral discomfort takes root in the best of people, forcing an imperative out of a complaint; so viscerally repugnant is it for a critical mass to find the prevailing system unbearable, much less prepare to take up arms against it.”

PeopleNeedsMovingPoliticalMoralArmsMassRootsDifficultyCriticalPaceAppetiteComplaintsImperativesUnbearableDiscomfortPrevailingDominatingSnailInsurmountableCritical MassPersonal Needs
Author:Vivian Gornick
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“Scientists are educated from a very early time and a very early age to believe that the greater scientist is the scientist who makes discoveries or theories that apply to the greatest ambit of things in the world. And if you've only made a very good theory about snails, or a very good theory about some planets but not about the universe as a whole, or about all the history of humankind, then you have in some sense accepted a lower position in the hierarchy of the fame of science as it's taught to you as a young student.”

IfsWorldBelieveMadeWholeAgeYoungUniverseGreaterPositionStudentsTaughtPlanetsTheoryFameDiscoveryScientistVery GoodAcceptedEducatedHumankindHierarchySnailYoung Students
Author:Richard Lewontin
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“I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank forefinger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail.”

MadeBookCharacterReadingFoundLinesInterestingAttentionPagesTrackFatsInteresting CharactersSnail
Book:Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].
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“We humans think we are smart, but an orchid, for example, knows how to produce noble, symmetrical flowers, and a snail knows how to make a beautiful, well-proportioned shell. Compared with their knowledge, ours is not worth much at all. We should bow deeply before the orchid and the snail and join our palms reverently before the monarch butterfly and the magnolia tree. The feeling of respect for all species will help us recognize the noblest nature in ourselves.”

ThinkingKnowsShouldHumansWellsHelpingFeelingsBeautifulNatureKnowledgeKnow HowTreeExampleProduceFlowerSmartRespectSpeciesNobleButterflyBowsShellsPalmsMonarchsSnailOrchidsMagnoliasMonarch ButterflySymmetrical
Book:Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential Writings
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“It would be rash to conclude that, on balance, the environment of the globe as a whole is either deteriorating or improving, or that the survival of the societies we know depends upon filling a simple set of prescriptions. It is all too complex and dynamic, whether it involves managing greenhouse gases or Nile snails... The future condition of the globe's interlocking natural and social systems depends more on human behavior than on the further investigation of natural processes, however desirable that may be.”

KnowsHumansMayWholeWould BeSocialProcessNaturalSimpleEnvironmentConditionsDependsBalanceBehaviorSurvivalComplexesEnvironmentalSustainabilityInvestigationGlobesImprovingHuman BehaviorDesirableFillingPrescriptionsGreenhousesSocial SystemsGreenhouse GasesSnailNileDeteriorating
Author:Gilbert F. White
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“The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people. Just pronounce the magic word "Art," and everything is O.K. Rotting corpses with snails crawling over them are O.K.; kicking little girls in the head is O.K.; even a film like L'Age d'Or is O.K.”

PeopleLittlesArtAgeFilmLawArtistGirlMoralMagicOrdinaryOrdinary PeopleCorpsesKickingBindingCrawlingRottingMoral LawSnailMagic Words
Book:All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays
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