Home / Topics / Species Quotes

Species Quotes

Browse 2277 quotes about Species.

Species Quotes

“A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked... . We as black people, we as people, we as the human species have got to get used to the fact we're not going to be right most of the time, not even when our intentions are good. We've got to go naked and see what happens.”

People Want Humans Facts Happens Used Black Intention Species Refuse Naked Black People Human Species

Author:Nikki Giovanni

“If there is a species which is more maltreated than children, then it must be their toys, which they handle in an incredibly off-hand manner. Toys are thus the end point in that long chain in which all the conditions of despotic high-handedness are in play which enchain beings one to another, from one species to another --cruel divinities to their sacrificial victims, from masters to slaves, from adults to children, and from children to their objects.”

Ifs Children Long Ends Play Hands Conditions Objects Masters Adults Victim Slave Species Handle Chains Divinity Toys

Book:Cool memories

Source: Cool memories

“In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority...and that oppression of the majority will extend to far great number, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. Under a cruel prince they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.”

“I should consent to breed under pressure, if I were convinced in any way of the reasonableness of reproducing the species. But my nerves and the nerves of any woman I could live with three months, would produce only a victim... lacking in impulse, a mere bundle of discriminations. If I were wealthy I might subsidize a stud of young peasants, or a tribal group in Tahiti.”

Source: Pavannes and Divagations

“Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are the emotional hallmarks of our species.”

Problem Emotional Species Curiosity Solve Urges Hallmark

Book:Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

Source: Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“We are the first species to have taken our evolution into our own hands.”

Firsts Hands Taken Evolution Species

Book:Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science

Source: Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science

“Accommodation to change, the thoughtful pursuit of alternative futures are keys to the survival of civilization and perhaps of the human species.”

Humans Keys Civilization Survival Species Pursuit Alternatives Thoughtful Human Species Accommodations

Book:Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science

Source: Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science

“Books tap the wisdom of our species -- the greatest minds, the best teachers -- from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient.”

World Mind Book Teacher Species Patient Best Teacher

Author:Carl Sagan

“Sexual behavior in our species goes through three characteristic phases: pair formation, precopulatory activity, and copulation, usually but not always in that order. The pair-formation stage, usually referred to as courtship, is remarkably prolonged by animal standards.”

Order Three Animal Stage Activity Behavior Standards Species Characteristics Pairs Phases Formation Courtship

Book:The illustrated naked ape: a zoologist's study of the human animal

Source: The illustrated naked ape: a zoologist's study of the human animal

“There is nothing biologically unusual about a homosexual act of pseudocopulation. Many species indulge in this, under a variety of circumstances.”

Circumstances Species Variety Unusual Homosexuality Homosexual Indulge Indulge In

Book:The illustrated naked ape: a zoologist's study of the human animal

Source: The illustrated naked ape: a zoologist's study of the human animal

“Looking back now on the whole sexual scene we can see that our species has remained much more loyal to its basic biological urges than we might at first imagine. Its primate sexual system with carnivore modifications has survived all the fantastic technological advances remarkably well.”

Firsts Wells Whole Might Sex Imagine Scene Species Fantastic Urges Loyal Looking Back Technological Survived Primates Modification Carnivores

Book:The illustrated naked ape: a zoologist's study of the human animal

Source: The illustrated naked ape: a zoologist's study of the human animal

“In a city a man may feel second to none. But alone in the immensity of the universe, among all the creatures that preceded man and built up the human species, even a most fervent atheist will wonder if Darwin found the visible road but not the invisible mechanism.”

Ifs Men Feels Humans May God Universe Found Cities Wonder Creatures Built Species Atheist Invisible Visible Mechanism Human Species Immensity Fervent

Author:Thor Heyerdahl

“Natural selection does not give any preference at all to anything that, in the long run, could be advantageous for the species but blindly rewards everything that, momentarily, affords greater procreative success.”

Giving Long Doe Running Natural Greater Evolution Species Rewards Long Runs Preference Selection Natural Selection

Author:Konrad Lorenz

“At this early stage in our evolution, now through our infancy and into our childhood and then, with luck, our growing up, what our species needs most of all, right now, is simply a future.”

Needs Growing Up Growing Childhood Stage Evolution Right Now Our Children Luck Species Infancy

Book:Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony

Source: Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony

“Theatre people, who are an adaptive species, know that to remain sane in the process of production where everyone and his uncle has an opinion about how to fix a show, you must pick the people whose knowledge and taste you trust and stick only to these few. The Tweetocracy is no place to look.”

People Knows Looks Shows Process Opinion Taste Picks Sticks Species Productions Theatre Sane Uncles Adaptive

Author:John Lahr

“As every parent knows, children go through an adolescent growth spurt, during which they put on inches at an alarming rate. Humans are unique in this respect: most mammalian species, including apes, progress almost directly from infancy to adulthood.”

Knows Humans Children Parent Growth Progress Unique Species Rate Including Inches Adulthood Apes Infancy

Author:Richard Leakey

“It seems inconceivable that a species of human could possess fully modern language and not be fully modern in all other ways, too. For this reason, the evolution of language is widely judged to be the culminating event in the emergence of humanity as we know it today.”

Knows Way Humans Reason Seems Today Humanity Language Modern Events Evolution Species Judged Emergence Modern Languages Evolution Of Language

Author:Richard Leakey

“The vast majority of terrestrial species are in fact microbes, and scientists have only begun scratching the surface of the microbial realm. It is entirely possible that examples of life as we don't know it have so far been overlooked.”

Knows Facts Example Scientist Majority Species Surface Realms Overlooked Microbes Scratching The Surface

Author:Paul Davies

“Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory, the retelling exemplifies the making of a connection from one pattern to another: a potential translation in which narrative becomes parable and the once upon a time comes to stand for some renascent truth. This approach applies to all the incidents of everyday life: the phrase in the newspaper, the endearing or infuriating game of a toddler, the misunderstanding at the office. Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.”

“Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject and contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the dignity of Man which the Hand of Nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes.”

Men Ideas Hands Purpose Loses Taught Degrees Dignity Regard Species

Author:George Mason

“The human species has all but lost its heart; we gave it up for the illusionary fruits of the material world. But a life without heart is a life without life force. The psyche, as well as the body, needs both heart and brain in order to survive. Like Chinese women who bound their feet and the could no longer walk freely, we have bound our hearts, and thus stunted our growth as moral beings.”

World Needs Humans Wells Heart Body Order Lost Force Growth Walks Brain Moral Feet Materials Species Fruit Bounds Chinese Human Species Material World Heart And Brain

Author:Marianne Williamson

“Mousse was a Labrador retriever, which is a large enthusiastic bulletproof species of dog made entirely from synthetic materials. This is the kind of dog that, if it takes an interest in your personal regions (which of course it does) you cannot fend it off with a blowtorch.”

Ifs Kind Doe Made Humor Funny Courses Interest Dog Materials Humorous Species Regions Enthusiastic Synthetic Bulletproof Retrievers Labradors

Book:Dave Barry Talks Back

Source: Dave Barry Talks Back

“Never to have seen anything but the temperate zone is to have lived on the fringe of the world. Between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer live the majority of all the plant species, the vast majority of the insects, most of the strange ... quadrupeds, all of the great and most of the poisonous snakes and large lizards, most of the brilliantly colored sea fishes, and the strangest and most gorgeously plumaged of the birds.”

World Science Sea Strange Bird Majority Plant Species Cancer Fishes Zone Snakes Insects Fringe Poisonous Lizards Tropic Of Cancer Capricorns Poisonous Snakes

Author:David Fairchild

“Plants, in a state of nature, are always warring with one another, contending for the monopoly of the soil,-the stronger ejecting the weaker,-the more vigorous overgrowing and killing the more delicate. Every modification of climate, every disturbance of the soil, every interference with the existing vegetation of an area, favours some species at the expense of others.”

Source: Introductory essay to the Flora Indica: including preliminary observations on the study of Indian botany; a summary of the labours of Indian botanists; a sketch of the meteorology of India; outlines of the physical geography and botany of the provinces of India: With 2 Maps. By J. D. Hooker and Thomas Thomson. Reprinted from the

“This view, as a rounded whole and in all its essential elements, has very recently disappeared from science. It died a royal death with Agassiz.”

Whole Science Views Evolution Essentials Elements Died Species Royal

Book:Natural Science and Religion

Source: Natural Science and Religion

“All the species recognized by Botanists came forth from the Almighty Creator's hand, and the number of these is now and always will be exactly the same, while every day new and different florists' species arise from the true species so-called by Botanists, and when they have arisen they finally revert to the original forms. Accordingly to the former have been assigned by Nature fixed limits, beyond which they cannot go: while the latter display without end the infinite sport of Nature.”

Has Beens Different Ends Hands Form Science Sports Numbers Limits Infinite Originals Species Creator Arise Former Fixed Latter Display Almighty

Author:Carl Linnaeus

“Each person is an idiom unto himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species.”

Persons Science Species Violation Idiom Syntax

Book:Becoming; Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality

Source: Becoming; Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality

“It may be argued that to know one kind of beetle is to know them all. But a species is not like a molecule in a cloud of molecules-it is a unique population.”

Knows Kind May Science Unique Species Clouds Population Molecules Beetles

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Let us suppose that we have laid on the table... [a] piece of glass... and let us homologize this glass to a whole order of plants or birds. Let us hit this glass a blow in such a manner as but to crack it up. The sectors circumscribed by cracks following the first blow may here be understood to represent families. Continuing, we may crack the glass into genera, species and subspecies to the point of finally having the upper right hand corner a piece about 4 inches square representing a sub-species.”

Firsts May Whole Hands Science Order Pieces Bird Understood Tables Plant Species Glasses Blow Following Corners Cracks Squares Inches Continuing Representing

Author:Leon Croizat

“Probably there was a beginning-it is a metaphysical question, worthy a theologian-species have begun and ended-but the analogy is faint and distant.”

Science Species Worthy Metaphysical Theologian Analogies

Author:Charles Lyell

“Two forms or species are sympatric, if they occur together, that is if their areas of distribution overlap or coincide. Two forms (or species) are allapatric, if they do not occur together, that is if they exclude each other geographically. The term allopatric is primarily useful in denoting geographic representatives.”

Ifs Two Together Form Science Term Areas Species Representatives Distribution

Author:Ernst Mayr

“We admit as many genera as there are different groups of natural species of which the fructification has the same structure.”

Different Science Natural Groups Structure Species

Author:Carl Linnaeus

“Man is merely a frequent effect, a monstrosity is a rare one, but both are equally natural, equally inevitable, equally part of the universal and general order. And what is strange about that? All creatures are involved in the life of all others, consequently every species... all nature is in a perpetual state of flux. Every animal is more or less a human being, every mineral more or less a plant, every plant more or less an animal... There is nothing clearly defined in nature.”

Men Humans States Science Order Natural Human Beings Animal Effects Strange Involved Creatures Universal Plant Species Defined Inevitable Perpetual Minerals Flux Monstrosity

Author:John Dewey

“Despite the campaign rhetoric, the bureaucracies-big business and big government-are here to stay. The centralization effort cannot be checked. but it can be rationally directed towards our species goal: Space Migration, which in turn offers the only way to re-attain individual freedom of space-time and the small-group social structures which obviously best suit our nervous systems. It is another paradox of neuro-genetics that only in space habitats can humanity return to the village life and pastoral style for which we all long.”

Source: Neuropolitique

“A new space race has begun, and most Americans are not even aware of it. This race is not [about] political prestige or military power. This new race involves the whole human species in a contest against time.”

Humans Whole Political Space Race Military Walking Moon Species Contests Prestige Star Gazing Human Species Military Power Space Race

Book:The High Road

Source: The High Road

“If the human species, or indeed any part of the biosphere, is to continue to survive, it must eventually leave the Earth and colonize space. For the simple fact of the matter is, the planet Earth is doomed... Let us follow many environmentalists and regard the Earth as Gaia, the mother of all life (which indeed she is). Gaia, like all mothers, is not immortal. She is going to die. But her line of descent might be immortal. . . . Gaia's children might never die out-provided they move into space. The Earth should be regarded as the womb of life-but one cannot remain in the womb forever.”

“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.”

“It's really incumbent upon us as life's agents to extend life to another planet. I think that being a multi-planet species will significantly increase the richness and scope of the human experience.”

Thinking Humans Planets Walking Moon Increase Species Agents Human Experience Scope Richness Star Gazing Incumbents

Author:Elon Musk

“Today the human race is a single twig on the tree of life, a single species on a single planet. Our condition can thus only be described as extremely fragile, endangered by forces of nature currently beyond our control, our own mistakes, and other branches of the wildly blossoming tree itself. Looked at this way, we can then pose the question of the future of humanity on Earth, in the solar system, and in the galaxy from the standpoint of both evolutionary biology and human nature. The conclusion is straightforward: Our choice is to grow, branch, spread and develop, or stagnate and die.”

Source: Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization

“As long as we are a single-planet species, we are vulnerable to extinction by a planetwide catastrophe, natural or self-induced. Once we become a multiplanet species, our chances to live long and prosper will take a huge leap skyward.”

Long Self Natural Chance Planets Huge Walking Moon Species Vulnerable Leap Catastrophe Extinction Star Gazing

Author:David Grinspoon

“The extension of life beyond Earth is the most important thing we can do as a species.”

Important Earth Can Do Walking Moon Important Things Species Extensions Star Gazing

Author:Elon Musk

“If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries, our species should be safe as we spread into space. If we are the only intellegent beings in the galaxy we should make sure we survive and continue. . . . Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth but to spread out into space. We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space.”

“[The proposed establishment] will have a . . . tendency to banish our Citizens. . . . To superadd a fresh motive to emigration by revoking the liberty which they now enjoy, would be the same species of folly which has dishonoured and depopulated flourishing kingdoms.”

States Would Be Enjoy Church Liberty Citizens Species Kingdoms Tendencies Motive Folly Establishment Flourishing Emigration

Book:Selected Writings of James Madison

Source: Selected Writings of James Madison

“I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to tell the story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.”

Writing Humans I Can Stories Seems Spiritual Language Existence Imagine Adventure Species Bounds Appropriate Formal Telling Stories Great Adventure

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“I accept extinction as best explaining disjoined species. I see that the same cause must have reduced many species of great range to small, and that it may have reduced large genera to so small, and of families.”

May Causes Accepting Species Range Extinction Explaining

Author:Asa Gray

“I just believe that our most redeeming feature as a species is our capacity for love.”

Believe Capacity Species Features Redeeming Just Believe

Author:Amanda McBroom

“With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate except Homo sapiens habitually destroys members of his own species.”

Certain Humanity Members Species Exception Homo Sapiens Rodents Vertebrates

Author:Anthony Storr

“Our climate is changing. The Earth's climate has, in fact, warmed by 1.1 to 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since the industrial revolution. People look at this and say: Oh, that is not very much. In fact, it is very much, and it changes the dynamic. It impacts species. It kills some. It diminishes the carbon sink of the ocean. It does a number of things.”

People Looks Doe Facts Earth Numbers Revolution Degrees Ocean Impact Climate Species Climate Change Carbon Diminish Industrial Revolution

Author:Dianne Feinstein

“Human freedom is not an illusion; it is an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found in only one species - us.”

Humans Found Conditions Illusion Species Objectives Phenomenon Human Freedom

Book:Freedom Evolves

Source: Freedom Evolves

“An active propaganda machinery controlled bv the world's largest corporations constantly reassures us that consumerism is the path to happiness, governmental restraint of market excess is the cause our distress, and economic globalization is both a historical inevitability and a boon to the human species.”