Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

People are animals, man.

The Darwinian revolution is about essence. The Darwinian revolution is about who we are, it's what we're made of, it's what our life means insofar as science can answer that question.

When a fantasy turns you on, you're obligated to God and nature to start doing it - right away.

I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.

Action is character.

What you are will show in what you do.

We become what we do.

This is what we do!

The elementary particles which form the embryo are each drawn from the corresponding structure in the parent, and conserve a sort of remembrance of their previous form, so that in the offspring they will reflect and reproduce a resemblance to the parents ... We can thus readily explain how new species are formed... by supposing that the elementary particles may not always retain the order which they present in the parents, but may fortuitously produce differences, which, multiplying and accumulating, have resulted in the infinite variety of species which we see at the present time.

Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.

We should not live by Darwinian principles. But Darwin explains how we got here.

I'm always very interested in breeding. Raising cacti is breeding. My lotus plant collection is breeding. The insects are breeding.

It's not what you like but what you are like that's important.

The ultimate question of who we are is set before us at all times and answered with every action.

The species and the genus are always the work of nature [i.e. specially created]; the variety mostly that of circumstance; the class and the order are the work of nature and art.

If you should rear a duck in the heart of the Sahara, no doubt it would swim if you brought it to the Nile.

I believe in sensuality. I believe in sex. I believe in the survival of the species. I like aspects of things that are ethereal, but I like the reality of nature and embracing the way nature works, and aspects of interrelationships between male-female, aspects of the body, the way the body has changed over thousands of years . . .

Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like 'What is my purpose in life?' very quickly lacked both.

I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way.

Is man an ape or an angel? Now I am on the side of the angels.

I think we give human beings too much credit. We're primates, you know.

Blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.

Man's Place in Nature.

Dinosaur: I plan to use punctuated equilibrium to turn this zit into a third eye. Catbert: That's not a natural advantage. You'd better stay away from the fitter dinosaurs.

The laws of biology are written in the language of diversity.