243 Quotes by Jared Diamond

Even to this day, no native Australian animal species and only one plant species-the macadamia nut-have proved suitable for domestication. There still are no domestic kangaroos.

Today Charles Darwin is best known for establishing the fact of evolution and for recognizing the major role of natural selection in driving it.

Science is often misrepresented as "the body of knowledge acquired by performing replicated controlled experiments in the laboratory." Actually, science is something broader: the acquisition of reliable knowledge about the world.

In short, Europe’s colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography—in particular, to the continents’ different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.

History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves

With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.

Recent discoveries about apes suggest, however, that a gorilla or common chimp stands at least as good a chance being murdered as the average human.

What did the last Easter Islander say as he chopped down the last tree? The Easter Islanders didnt have anthropologists.

With the MacArthur grant, I realized that people have high expectations of me, that they were placing me in this group of achievers. I compared what Id actually achieved in my life with what I would like to achieve and what other people have achieved, and I found that comparison depressing.