Richard Dawkins Quotes

Genes are not destiny!

Genes can't possibly explain all of what makes us what we are.

Genes don't mean necessarily that you have got a certain strand of gene that makes you particularly acceptable as a public official.

Well, it arose out of two long-term concerns - the first being the possibility of genetic manipulation, nature versus nurture, what constitutes how people get to be how they are.

Your genetics load the gun. Your lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Heredity proposes and development disposes.

Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

Character, I am sure, lies in the genes.

One of the things about genetics that has become clearer as we've done genomes - as we've worked our way through the evolutionary tree, including humans - is that we're probably much more genetic animals than we want to confess we are.

I align myself with almost all researchers in assuming that anything we do is a composite of whatever genetic limitations were given to us by our parents and whatever kinds of environmental opportunities are available.

I don't know if acting is genetic. Maybe it's environmental.

Genetics do play a role in how you consciously or subconsciously manifest your true self.

Genetics play a huge part in who we are. But we also have free will.

Genes are not about inevitabilities; they're about potentials and vulnerabilities.

Your genetics is not your destiny.

Man is the control experiment of heredity and environment; and since his heredity controls him, he tries to control his environment.

So no, it's not all in the genes, but what isn't in the genes isn't in the family environment either. It can't be explained in terms of the overall personalities or the child-rearing practices of parents.

My father was always getting excited about something. It's genetically inside me somewhere.

You know, there's a tremendous amount of genetic propensity not necessarily for what TV shows you like but for literally how you view the world, how you react to things, how things touch you and how things move you.

The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.

People think genes are an absolute cause of traits. But the notion that the genome is the blueprint for humanity is a very bad metaphor. If you think we're hard-wired and deterministic, there should indeed be a lot more genes.

If you talk to geneticists they are constantly finding that your genes are being switched on and off because of the environment. Genes alone do not determine an exact path in your life.

Even with seemingly simple things like eye color, you can't tell from my genetic code whether I have blue eyes or not. So it's naive to think that complex human behaviors, like risk-seeking, are driven by changes in one or two genes.

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.

Parents provide their children with genes as well as an environment, so the fact that talkative parents have kids with good language skills could simply mean that and that the same genes that make parents talkative make children articulate.