49 Quotes by Lynn Margulis

Evolution is no linear family tree, but change in the single multidimensional being that has grown to cover the entire surface of Earth.

Life did not take over the world by combat,but by networking.

For all the accomplishments of molecular biology, we still can't tell a live cat from a dead cat.

Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create... Neo-Darwinists say that new species emerge when mutations occur and modify an organism. I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change [which] led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.

New mutations don't create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.

Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement... Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.

Los cuerpos grandes son una ventaja para los luchadores; los genitales grandes lo son para los amantes.

Life on earth is more like a verb. It repairs, maintains, re-creates, and outdoes itself.

Life on earth is such a good story you cannot afford to miss the beginning... Beneath our superficial differences we are all of us walking communities of bacteria. The world shimmers, a pointillist landscape made of tiny living beings.