Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one's own genes in the generations to follow.
Quote by Lewis Thomas
Click on the picture of Lewis Thomas quote you want to see a larger version.
Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one's own genes in the generations to follow.
Click on the picture of Lewis Thomas quote you want to see a larger version.
Lewis Thomas Quotes
- Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind.
- Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television.
- The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.
- I won't compare ants and people, but ants give us a useful model of how single members of a community can become so organized that they end up resembling, in effect, one big collective brain. Our own exploding population and communication technology are leading us that way.
- If you want to use a cliche you must take full responsibility for it yourself and not try to fob it off on anon., or on society.
- We're as clever as we think we are, but we'll be a lot cleverer when we learn to use not just one brain but to pool huge numbers of brains. We're at a level technologically where we can share information and think collectively about our problems. We do it in science all the time - there's no reason why we can't do it in other endeavors.
- Very few recognize science as the high adventure it really is, the wildest of all explorations ever taken by human beings, the chance to glimpse things never seen before, the shrewdest maneuver for discovering how the world works.
- The central task of science is to arrive, stage by stage, at a clearer comprehension of nature, but this does not at all mean, as it is sometimes claimed to mean, a search for mastery over nature.
- I suggest that the introductory courses in science, at all levels from grade school through college, be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals, the so-called basics, aside for a while, and concentrate the attention of all students on the things that are not known.
- Much of today's public anxiety about science is the apprehension that we may forever be overlooking the whole by an endless, obsessive preoccupation with the parts.
- The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers.
Best Quotes
- I always wanted to be honest with myself and to those who have had faith in me.
- The serve, I was too young and too small and... not enough powerful to have a good serve when I was young, so my forehand was always my signature shot. So I used to always run around my backhand, you know, use my forehand as much as I could, and so that's why I think it's my strength also today, you know.
- I did all the right things in so many tournaments. But like I said, sometimes in sports it just goes the other way. Maybe you've already won so much that it evens it out a bit sometimes. I don't know.
- I used to get nervous, you know if my parents would come watch. And then I would get nervous if my friends came and watched. Today it's not a problem anymore actually, because now I enjoy it. I see that they, you know, respect me immensely, and I try to put on a good show and show that I can still play very good tennis.
- When I won in 2003, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would win Wimbledon and have my kids seeing me lift the trophy, so this is pretty surreal. And yeah, I was almost shocked in the moment that it all came together so nicely.
- Before, I guess, mum and dad were everything, but now, in my case, I had two new girls and all of a sudden they're completely dependent on you and there's a third generation. It's a funny shift all of a sudden. You have the babies, you have yourself and then you have your parents.
- My dad said if you become a tennis professional just make sure you get into the top hundred, because you have to make a little bit of money. You make a living so you can pay your coaching and, you know, your travels.
- When you do something best in life, you don't really want to give that up - and for me it's tennis.
- When there is nothing to talk about don't force yourself to say anything because it may land you in trouble.
- It’s crazy how people say, "I rely on facts," And believe thier television sets.
- Some people are drawn naturally - there are natural guitarists, and there are natural piano players, and I think guitar implies travel, a sort of footloose gypsy existence. You grab your bag and you go to the next town.