182 Quotes by Lewis Thomas

Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one’s own genes in the generations to follow.

The uniformity of the earth’s life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled.

Altruism, a jargon word for what used to be called love, is worse than weakness, it is sin, a violation of nature. Be seperate. Do not be a social animal.

Altruism has always been one of biology’s deep mysteries. Why should any animal, off on its own, specified and labeled by all sorts of signals as its individual self, choose to give up its life in aid of someone else?

The oldest, easiest to swallow idea was that the earth was man’s personal property, a combination of garden, zoo, bank vault, and energy source, placed at our disposal to be consumed, ornamented, or pulled apart as we wished.

Things are bound to begin happening if you’ve got your wits about you. You create the lucky accidents.

Nature abhors a long silence.

We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still.

It’s just plain learning something that you didn’t know. There is a real aesthetic experience in being dumbfounded.