Spencer Wells Quotes

History in its broadest aspect is a record of man's migrations from one environment to another.

Tasmanian history is a study of human isolation unprecedented except in science fiction - namely, complete isolation from other humans for 10,000 years.

The grand saga of how humans spread across the globe will need some amendments and annotations - rendezvous here, elopements there, and the commingling of genes most everywhere.

Migration is development.

I think humans are migratory animals.

One of the few things that can be said for certain about Europe's prehistoric peoples is that they all came from somewhere else.

And who in time knows whither we may vent the treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores this gain of our best glories shall be sent, 't unknowing Nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed Occident may come refined with the accents that are ours?

Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?

The western nations of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilization, owe little or none of their superiority to direct inheritance from the old Greeks, though they owe much to the written works of that wonderful people.

We're obviously at the edge of something quite new in humanity's experience. That is this globalization process which isn't just economic or social, but involves the interpenetration of cultures, people moving to different places several times in their lifetime, traveling for business or pleasure, and marrying people of very different cultural backgrounds, all of which was almost impossible a hundred years ago.

I think that people are going to move. They always have and that's going to continue. The question is, how are we going to deal with it?

It's very hard to track down what's real and what's not real. We haven't absorbed what climate change is doing. Because whether people associate it or not, fear of immigration is completely related to climate change, because the mass migrations that are happening, the war in Syria, all of these structural human migrations are related to climate change.

I think soft power definitely can work. But, you know, it depends on who you're dealing with. Some people are so intent upon power and keeping power that it's very difficult to conduct soft power.

I loved this idea of always being a foreigner. There's this thing where people bring cultures, bring the music together. I love it when the music, when the cultures collide and something sort of new comes out of it.

What is meant by its nature for the highest and the best, spreads among the lowly people.

When I turned twenty-five, I did a six-week trip around Europe by myself. I'd never really done a European trip before and I'd definitely never traveled alone like that. I just had such a great time meeting people. I had such a great time seeing new cultures and different ways that people think and different ways that they live and different ways that they see the world.

America loves Poland, and America loves the Polish people. Thank you.The Poles have not only greatly enriched this region, but Polish-Americans have also greatly enriched the United States, and I was truly proud to have their support in the 2016 election.

Chemistry is necessarily an experimental science: its conclusions are drawn from data, and its principles supported by evidence from facts.

Young people live in a society in which every institution becomes an "inspection regime" - recording, watching, gathering information and storing data.

I'm usually the last to see my influence in other people's work. People give me stuff and say "Oh look, this guy's ripping you off," and I'm like "What do you mean?" Often I see the people that I've ripped off filtered into my own work. In other people's work, I can only see specific, tiny little instances of inflections stolen from another artist.

No theory ever benefited by the application of data, Amy. Data kills theories. A theory has no better time than when it's lying there naked, pure, unsullied by facts. Let's just keep it that way for a while." "So you don't really have a theory?" "Clueless." "You lying bag of fish heads." "I can fire you, you know. Even if Clay was the one that hired you, I'm not totally superfluous to this operation yet. I'm kind of in charge. I can fire you. Then how will you live?" "I'm not getting paid." "See, right there. Perfectly good concept ruined by the application of fact.

The slowness of one section of the world about adopting the valuable ideas of another section of it is a curious thing and unaccountable.

I've learned a lot just being around people who grew up so differently from me, which is cool. It teaches you how to be a lot more tolerant. The bigger your world is, the more tolerant and accepting you become, because you have friends from all walks of life. You learn to be a little bit less selfish.

The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category.

People in both fields operate with beliefs and biases. To the extent you can eliminate both and replace them with data, you gain a clear advantage.