E. O. Wilson Quotes

The preoccupation with the choice of a mate both by male and female I regard as a continuing echo of the major selective force by which we have evolved.

With mammals the male appears to win the female much more through the law of battle than through the display of his charms.

I’ve never heard that the sexual act requires any particular intelligence. From what I’ve observed, many stupid people are easily able to produce children.

men are attracted to beauty because it indicates health and youth—no point mating with a sickly woman who won’t be around to raise the children.

I think romantic love evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time, thereby conserving mating time and energy.

Almost nothing is known from hybridization studies about the inheritance of courtship behavior of females, or of their responsiveness to particular male signals.

All human behavior, all human motivations, all man’s hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind’s tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction.

Women do not avoid fighting because they are dainty or scared, but because they have a greater stake than men in staying alive to rear their offspring. Women compete with each other just as tenaciously as men, but with a stealth and subtlety that reduces their chances of being killed or injured.

I don't think I was constructed to be monogamous. I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed into as many females as possible.

One glance and I knew exactly who and what he was. The classic alpha male, the kind who had spurred evolution forward about five million years ago by nailing every female in sight. They charmed, seduced, and behaved like bastards, and yet women were biologically incapable of resisting their magic DNA.

Another possibility is that evolution selected creativity in general as a marker of sexual fitness.

Evolutionary psychology tells us that men, especially powerful men, feel invincible and entitled to spread their seed, and that women can't resist the scent of masculine power. Women, by contrast, are said to be more altruistic and collaborative, seeking power so that they can share it with others.

Take male strategies for success in the world. If you've got all the advantages, if you're attractive and clever and all of that, you will generally go for very high quality females.

In courtship, who wins and who loses will determine who passes on their DNA to tomorrow.

Evolution has programmed our brains to find two things particularly interesting, and therefore memorable: jokes and sex - and especially, it seems, jokes about sex.

The independent role of morphology in mate choice is revealed by the rare instances where the usual association between song and morphology is disrupted.

Lot of ugly funny dudes end up with some pretty gorgeous women. Women are much deeper than us in choosing a mate - they see in the long term.

I don't want to go into a marriage just because of my age - too many people make that mistake. But of course I'd like to be married one day - I dream of having children because I adore kids so, so much.

Mama grizzlies mate later than other bears. They have two cubs instead of four. They wait four years - about twice as long as other bears - between having cubs. And after they're pregnant, if winter is hard or their health is not good or the food supply is uncertain, they re-absorb the embryo into their body.

Animals use a broad range of strategies to advertise themselves in the mating market. In some instances, visual cues highlight a morphological feature - for example, the peacock's tail.

In the jungle, size is king. Women like big men. That's just evolution.

A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.

You make your own kinds of mistakes, and I’m sure you’ll have your share of regrets in life. But commitment was never your problem, sweetie. You have a better chance of making this work than most forty-year-olds I know. My little middle-aged child. Luckily, you seem to have found another old soul.

We are finally driven to monogamy not by morality but by exhaustion.

Men would make love with any number of women ... even total strangers, while females were selective. They were catering to the demands of one small egg. While males had millions of frantic sperms screaming: "Let us out, let us out!".