182 Quotes by Lewis Thomas

Most things get better by themselves. Most things, in fact, are better by morning.

It is not a simple life to be a single cell, although I have no right to say so, having been a single cell so long ago myself that I have no memory at all of that stage of my life.

Good science is done by being curious in general, by asking questions all around, by acknowledging the likelihood of being wrong and taking this in good humor for granted, by having a deep fondness for nature, and by being made jumpy and nervous by ignorance.

It would seem to me... an offense against nature, for us to come on the same scene endowed as we are with the curiosity, filled to overbrimming as we are with questions, and naturally talented as we are for the asking of clear questions, and then for us to do nothing about, or worse, to try to suppress the questions...

The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.

Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you’d think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.

The whole dear notion of one’s own Self-marvelous old free-willed, free- enterprising, autonomous, independent, isolated island of a Self- is a myth.

A multitude of bees can tell the time of day, calculate the geometry of the sun’s position, argue about the best location for the next swarm. Bees do a lot of close observing of other bees; maybe they know what follows stinging and do it anyway.

In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course – often with a great lurch – every few years.