E. O. Wilson Quotes

That's reality, it's accessibility. People are used to seeing me like that for the last year, I think, ... To avoid it is avoidance. We're not going to avoid things.

There was one element of my childhood that was really a positive asset for me. By moving a lot, I learned to assimilate into whatever new surroundings I had and to become very comfortable with people quickly. I think that was one of the strongest contributing factors to my becoming an actor, because I constantly had to readjust, even reinvent. But at the same time, it also became very easy for me not to become attached to people, places, or things. I learned to enjoy people and places for the time I had, for the moment, to be in the moment, and move on.

It is wonderful what you can do when you have to.

I don't want to justify religion in terms of its benefits to us. I believe that, on balance, it does a lot of bad things, too - a tremendous amount. But I don't think that the final justification of religion is the good it does for people. I think the final justification is that it's true, and truth takes priority over consequences. Religion helps us deal with what is most important to the human spirit: values, meaning, purpose, and quality.

I think that everybody does hustle in order to survive. That doesn't mean lying - it's more about how you handle situations.

Sometimes I decide not to make something because I am proud and think I am better than that - and then I realise I have to pay the rent and I have to take something which is even worse than all the other stuff they offer you because you were being so proud not to take it! But you adjust and sometimes for one reason or another there is no strategy at the end but there is the ability to do the best that you can with what you have.

I think that's the core of black aesthetics: the ability to improvise. That is what has enabled our [black people's] survival.

A wise man never refuses anything to necessity.

People would pull the rug out from under me. So I learnt how to dance on a moving carpet.

Life will not always change, so we must be willing to change.

Changing is what people do when they have no options left.

It's not always the strong that survive. It takes brains, guts, tolerance and forward thinking.

A man or a race either if he's any good can survive his past without even needing to escape from it and not because of the high quite often only too rhetorical rhetoric of humanity but for the simple indubitable practical reason of his future: that capacity to survive and absorb and endure and still be steadfast.

Work hard, think fast and you'll last.

But in life we don't usually get to choose the time of our defining moments. We just have to stand and face them when they come, no matter what sort of a state we're in.

...even the most independent people sometimes needed help. And if I'd learned nothing else from my life thus far, it was that you don't always end up where you think you're going.

To change is difficult. Not to change is fatal.

The most effective leaders of companies in transition are the quiet, unassuming people whose inner wiring is such that the worst circumstances bring out their best. They're unflappable, they're ready to die if they have to. But you can trust that, when bad things are happening, they will become clearheaded and focused.

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great individuals, like great companies, find a way to transform weakness into strength.

But here's the ugly truth: nature doesn't care about democracy, or who's right, or what's fair. And because of the slow-change aspect of climate, we can't wait until the worst effects are upon us to make a decision -- by then, it would be far, far too late. The scenario we may be faced with is one where doing something for the wrong reasons, run by the wrong people, may still save more lives than holding out for a more appealing option.

People have to go through what they have to go through. I think in some cases you sort of bring things on yourself and that's what you want it to be than that's the way it is.

Humor is the only thing that allows you to survive every pressure and crisis.

People don't normally change when things are going well. But I want to see what's next and keep moving. That keeps things fresh.

I think a lot of becoming an entrepreneur is something which people have to learn just from getting out there and giving it a go, and having to learn the art of survival.