Theodosius Dobzhansky Quotes

Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe was true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a Thursday if you come to look at it.

It is a crime among them to kill any newly-born infant. They hold that the souls of all who perish in battle or by the hands of the executioner are immortal. Hence a passion for propagating their race and a contempt for death. They are wont to bury rather than to burn their dead

Man is always something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness - or so good as drink.

I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.

The truth is, if a werewolf behaved like this psychopath it wouldn't be because he was part animal, but because he was still too human. Only humans kill for sport.

I always find you go back to an animal; it will always show you the sort of primal aspects of behavior. You always know how to respond if you choose that.

Every animal loves itself.

Man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams .

Why do people shush animals? Theyve never spoken

Man is the only animal that is cruel. It kills just for the sake of it.

Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.

How many times do we pay for one mistake? The answer is a thousand times for the same mistake. The human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for ONE mistake. The rest of the animals pay once for every mistake.

The more experience and insight I obtain into human nature, the more convinced do I become that the greater portion of a man is purely animal.

A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.

Man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind.

Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

To me the most interesting thing about man is that he is an animal who practices art and science and in every known society practices both together.

You know, whether it be humans or animals. So even humans - before we can speak or we can understand a baby's cognition - they're already showing us signs that they want choice.

I eat not because I want to, not because I have to overcome anything, not to prove myself to anyone, but because it's there. I eat because that's what people do. And somehow when the food is put in front of you by an institution, when there's a large gray force behind it and you don't have to thank anyone for it, you have the animal instinct to make it disappear.

Humans are the only animals who will follow unstable pack leaders.

When I watch species other than my own, their instinct's wisdom is what most impresses and disturbs me.

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.

You are hierarchical. That's the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It's a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all... That was like ignoring cancer.

Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us.

If you did everything your mind told you to do, you do some really strange stuff. You'll probably be in jail, you'll be in trouble. But, it's all about control. We all have to control our feelings. That's the thing that separates us from animals.