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Zoology Quotes

Browse 39 quotes about Zoology.

Zoology Quotes

“You know, the original name for a merhorse was 'hippocampus,' but that fell out of favor because it's the same word as a part of the brain. Also, it sounds too much like hippopotamus, which isn't a similar animal at all." She had never seen a hippopotamus, though she'd read about them. "Did you know that hippopotamus secrete a red oil that keeps their skin dry and protects them from the sun?”

ZoologyHippopotamusHippocampus
Book:The Spellshop
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“The country remained the same, and was extremely uninteresting. The complete similarity of the productions throughout Patagonia is one of its most striking characters. The level plains of arid shingle support the same stunted and dwarf plants; and in the valleys the same thorn-bearing bushes grow. Everywhere we see the same birds and insects. Even the very banks of the river and of the clear streamlets which entered it, were scarcely enlivened by a brighter tint of green. The curse of sterility is on the land, and the water flowing over a bed of pebbles partakes of the same curse. Hence the number of waterfowl is very scanty; for there is nothing to support life in the stream of this barren river. (In regards to the steppes of Patagonia)”

ScienceExplorationZoologyPatagoniaGeography And Culture
Book:Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World, Under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy, R.N.
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“Chronicling the passage of whales has led me to an understanding that we, as a species, now sand at a crossroads. We can face the possibility of our own extinction and work to avert it, or we can flow the more traditional path of earths organisms and fall blindly over the edge. If there's one trait that characterised human beings, it's the will to survive. This, I believe, will motivate us to work with the natural world rather than opposite it, which is all we need to do to give the children of earth - of all species - the opportunity to thrive.”

PeopleHopeAnimalsConservationZoologyOrcas
Book:Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us
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“The factors facilitating the global emergence of pathogens shared between humans and animals are of particular importance because the diseases they induce have had major impacts on both human and animal health. This transfer of pathogens has ocurred for thousands, if not millions, of years and continues today.”

EvolutionAnthropologyVirusEvolutionary BiologyZoologyParasitePathogen
Book:Palaeopathology and Evolutionary Medicine: An Integrated Approach
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“Our species has co-evolved alongside many others to which we were in contact, especially through scavenging, hunting, and then animal husbandry, all of which would have exposed us to novel pathogens and zoonotic diseases. As a species, we had to adapt to these new pathogens without the benefits of modern medicine. The newly emerging diseases of recent decades, while novel in themselves, are but a repeat of patterns which humans have survived over several millennia.”

EvolutionAnthropologyVirusEvolutionary BiologyZoologyParasitePathogen
Book:Palaeopathology and Evolutionary Medicine: An Integrated Approach
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“Today there are almost eight billion people on earth, crowded together and travelling widely -this is 1300 times more than were present when the agricultural revolution began around 10,000 years ago and facilitated the spread of many pathogens.”

EvolutionPopulationAnthropologyDemographicsVirusEvolutionary BiologyZoologyParasitePathogen
Book:Palaeopathology and Evolutionary Medicine: An Integrated Approach
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“Humans have always lived surrounded by potential pathogens. Whether they co-exist relatively harmlessly or become a problem, cause acute or chronic disease and spread slowly or in epidemics has been, and still is, influenced by how we have impacted the environments we share with other animals. Pathogens are opportunists within these environments, capable and ready to take advantage of anything that promotes their transmission.”

EvolutionAnthropologyVirusEvolutionary BiologyZoologyParasitePathogen
Book:Palaeopathology and Evolutionary Medicine: An Integrated Approach
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“Until relatively recently, and with a very few exceptions, cannibalism would have been regarded as anything but normal. As a result, until the last two decades of the 20th century, few scientists spent time studying a topic thought to have little, if any, biological significance. Basically, the party line was that cannibalism, when it did occur, was either the result of starvation to the stresses related to captive conditions. It was as simple as that. Or so we thought.”

ScienceCannibalismZoologyPopular Science
Book:Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History
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“We see, then, that even from the zoological point of view, which is the least interesting and—note this—not decisive, a being in such condition can never achieve a genuine equilibrium; we also see something that differs from the idea of challenge-response in Toynbee and, in my judgement, effectively constitutes human life: namely, that no surroundings or change of surroundings can in itself be described as an obstacle, a difficulty, and a challenge for man, but that the difficulty is always relative to the projects which man creates in his imagination, to what he customarily calls his ideals; in short, relative to what man wants to be. This affords us an idea of challenge-and-response which is much deeper and more decisive than the merely anecdotal, adventitious, and accidental idea which Toynbee proposes. In its light, all of human life appears to us as what it is permanently: a dramatic confrontation and struggle of man with the world and not a mere occasional maladjustment which is produced at certain moments.”

LifePhilosophyHumanityHistoryExistentialismConfrontationEquilibriumZoologyToynbee
Book:An Interpretation of Universal History
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“We sat perfectly still in the dim light as the wolf approached closer, head cocked, mouth closed, and ears semi-erect. With these signs of both curiosity and trepidation, it took a step forward and then backed off a ways, then took a few steps forward again. It lifted its nose and sniffed intently, and finally stopped at about eight feet away. For a moment all three of us were perfectly still, wondering what was going to happen next.”

Wildlife ConservationZoologyAnimal BehaviourWildlife Tracking
Book:Wolves in the Land of Salmon
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“According to man's environment, society has made as many different types of men as there are varieties in zoology. The differences between a soldier, a workman, a statesman, a tradesman, a sailor, a poet, a pauper and a priest, are more difficult to seize, but quite considerable as the differences between a wolf, a lion, an ass, a crow, a sea-calf, a sheep, and so on.”

MenMadeDifferentDifficultDifferencesEnvironmentSeaSocietyPoetTypeSoldierAssVarietyPriestsLionsSheepSailorCrowStatesmenWorkmenCalvesZoology
Author:Honore de Balzac
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“A formative influence on my undergraduate self was the response of a respected elder statesmen of the Oxford Zoology Department when an American visitor had just publicly disproved his favourite theory. The old man strode to the front of the lecture hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared in ringing, emotional tones: "My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years." And we clapped our hands red. Can you imagine a Government Minister being cheered in the House of Commons for a similar admission? "Resign, Resign" is a much more likely response!”

MenYearsHas BeensSelfHandsGovernmentHouseWishImagineInfluenceFrontsEmotionalTheoryRedFellowsResponseDearMinistersToneDepartmentHallsOld ManFavouriteFifteenEldersLecturesStatesmenVisitorsOxfordAdmissionFifteen YearsUndergraduateHouse Of CommonsZoology
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“Living, as I do, in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have conceived that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the forearm, while the wing of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between?”

KnowsFirstsLittlesFactsThreeKnownPrinciplesBirdHumorousWingsFingersEducatedAtmosphereSarcasmBatsAnatomyMembranesZoology
Book:The Lost World and Other Stories
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“ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Musca maledicta"). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.”

ScienceMotherFatherHouseNamesAnimalKingsHistoricalIncludingKingdomsAnimal KingdomConcededZoology
Book:Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs
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“In fact,I believe the reason why the Chinese failed to develop botany and zoology is that the Chinese scholar cannot stare coldly and unemotionally at a fish without immediately thinking of how it tastes in the mouth and wanting to eat it. The reason I don't trust Chinese surgeons is that I am afraid that when a Chinese surgeon cuts up my liver in search of a gall-stone, he may forget about the stone and put my liver in a frying pan.”

ThinkingBelieveMayReasonFactsI BelieveForgetCuttingTasteMouthsStonesFishesChineseStaringReason WhyScholarSurgeonsDon't TrustLiverFryingBotanyZoologyFrying Pans
Book:The Importance of Living
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“Every politician, clergyman, educator, or physician, in short, anyone dealing with human individuals, is bound to make grave mistakes if he ignores these two great truths of population zoology: (1) no two individuals are alike, and (2) both environment and genetic endowment make a contribution to nearly every trait.”

IfsHumansTwoIndividualMistakeEnvironmentPoliticianBoundsPopulationGravesContributionTraitsPhysiciansEducatorEndowmentClergymenZoology
Author:Ernst Mayr
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“Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow, Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle, Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town and History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.”

FirstsBodyNightSunPsychologyTomorrowTownsDown AndFishesAstronomyClockBiologyLayersRainbowBlanketZoologyGazelles
Book:Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology : Poems
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“In every bio-region, one of the most urgent tasks is to rebuild the community of naturalists - so radically depleted in recent years, as young people have spent less time in nature, and higher education has placed less value on such disciplines as zoology……The times are right for the return of the amateur, twenty-first-century, citizen naturalist. To be a citizen naturalist is to take personal action, to both protect and participate in nature.”

PeopleYearsFirstsActionYoungValuesCommunityCenturyReturnHigherCitizensDisciplineProtectTasksTwentiesRegionsUrgentHigher EducationNaturalistBiosZoology
Author:Richard Louv
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“Yes, gentlemen, give me the map of any country, its configuration, its climate, its waters, its winds, and the whole of its physical geography; give me its natural productions, its flora, its zoology, &c., and I pledge myself to tell you, a priori, what will be the quality of man in history:-not accidentally, but necessarily; not at any particular epoch, but in all; in short, -what idea he is called to represent.”

MenGivingIdeasCountryWholeWaterNaturalQualityParticularWindGive MeClimateProductionsGentlemanMapsGeographyPledgeEpochFloraConfigurationZoology
Book:Introduction to the History of Philosophy
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