Lewis Thomas Quotes

My mitochondria comprise a very large proportion of me. I cannot do the calculation, but I suppose there is almost as much of them in sheer dry bulk as there is the rest of me. Looked at in this way, I could be taken for a very large, motile colony of respiring bacteria, operating a complex system of nuclei, microtubules, and neurons for the pleasure and sustenance of their families, and running, at the moment, a typewriter.

Bacteria are single-celled organisms. Bacteria are the model organisms for everything that we know in higher organisms. There are 10 times more bacterial cells in you or on you than human cells.

In reality, a cell is a biological mini-me compared to the human body. A cell has every biological system that you have.

Back during the most dramatic and challenging time in our history, when we first came together with wolves, we had no idea that it was changing everything, but we literally evolved together. Without us there would be no dogs, and vice versa.

Life seeks life and loves life. The opening of a catkin of a willow, in the flight of the butterfly, in the chirping of a tree-toad or the sweep of an eagle - my life loves to see how others live, exults in their joy, and so far is partner in their great concern.

Studies in the emerging field of cellular bioenergetics, a branch of biochemistry concerned with how energy flows through living systems, suggest that molecules from orchids might be able to repair decaying mitochondria, the powerhouses of cells, in humans.

Trees are our closest relatives. What trees exhale, we inhale; what we exhale, they inhale. They are half our respiratory system.

Nature promotes mutualism. The flower nourishes the bee. The river waters quench the thirst of all living beings. And trees provide a welcoming home to so many birds and animals. There is a rhythm to this togetherness.

We've been merging with tools since the beginning of human evolution, and arguably, that's one of the things that makes us human beings.

You know, duality has always been a strong theme throughout 'Venom'-focused stories, whether it's in the comics or in movies, and that's something I think that Tom Hardy's played with in a lot of his work.

The dogs and I are a single thing, and thus we share our interests. With them, I'm bigger and better than I am without them, and vice versa.

Am I simply a vehicle for numerous bacteria that inhabit my microbiome? Or are they hosting me?

A cell is a complex structure, with its investing membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus.

The strong need the weak as much as the weak need the strong

Not only the thirsty seek the water, the water as well seeks the thirsty.

One mouth doth nothing without another.

I think coexisting with another life form is a very rich experience. It's why people keep plants and animals.

Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold? The tree says to the leaf: "That’s the cycle of life. You may think you’re going to die, but you live on in me. It’s thanks to you that I’m alive, because I can breathe. It’s also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing.

Quantum physics has found that there is no empty space in the human cell, but it is a teeming, electric-magnet ic field of possibility or potential

Come into our home, daughters of Earth; dwell in our tunnels, harvest our fields; what we cannot do, you are now our hands to do for us. Blossom, trees; ripen, fields; be warm for them, suns; be fertile for them, planets: they are our adopted daughters, and they have come home.

Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is the clay of the potter: which, bake it and paint it as hewill, remains clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature from the commonest brick or sun-dried clod.

There's an interdependence between flowers and bees. Where there are no flowers there are no bees, and where there are no bees, there are no flowers. They are really one organism. And so in the same way, everything in nature depends on everything else.

Sometimes we meet people and are so symbiotic with them, it's as if we are one person, with one mind, one destiny

You soak up my soul and mingle me. Each drop of my blood cries out to the earth. We are partners, blended as one.

If I brought you down to the size of an individual cell so that you could see your body from that perspective, it would offer a whole new view of the world. When you looked back at yourself from that perspective you would not see yourself as a single entity. You would see yourself as a bustling community of more than 50 trillion individual cells.