Michael Dickinson Quotes

I love insects. They are amazing.

Insects are what neurosis would sound like, if neurosis could make a noise with its nose.

[Insects] are not only cold-blooded, and green- and yellow-blooded, but are also cased in a clacking horn. They have rigid eyes and brains strung down their backs. But they make up the bulk of our comrades-at-life, so I look to them for a glimmer of companionship.

An insect is more complex than a star..and is a far greater challenge to understand.

A fly was very close to being called a land, because that's what it does half the time.

Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths?

Where are the dogs going? you people who pay so little attention ask. They are going about their business. And they are very punctilious, without wallets, notes, and without briefcases.

Wars are begun by frightened men. They fear war, but more than that, they fear what will happen if they don't start one or take equivalent action, I suppose.

Fish got to swim, birds got to fly.

Violence is the instinctive response to fear.

Fear invites aggression - do not show it to a predator.

Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.

See yourself reacting to threats, not by running away or evading them, but by meeting them, dealing with them, grappling with them in an aggressive intelligent manner.

Bee, why are you staring at me? I am not a flower??

So long as I'm the president, we will. I clearly see the challenge. I see the challenge of what these threats pose to our homeland, and I see the challenge of what these threats pose to the world.

We face now an era where we're going to be fighting the terrorist threat. I mean, that's simply a reality we are going to have to address that one.

I personally guarantee that now that bear wouldn't get past Dover without being shot.

One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.

Dancing is so great because there are all the little details, and the little movements, and the little muscles that are working without you even realizing.

I ask citizens and governments everywhere to do their part by conserving energy and reducing the use of fossil fuels for the good of the world community. This is our duty to those who share this world with us and to those who follow us: Wherever we see a threat to our environment we must take action

Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrasment...They do everything but watch television.

I mean I love movement. I mean the energy that comes from the way I move. We get energy from how we move. I mean the control I get from knowing everything about how my body feels and how it is working.

People think athleticism is just physical, but it's not. It's connected to the brain and how the brain can learn to execute and see a movement or not. Especially at high speed. Being athletic is not just jumping and running and being powerful. It's the nervous system that guides the body. The muscles don't decide anything. The brain decides and makes things happen.

We don't really know what we believe in or care about until what we believe in or care about is threatened, challenged, or measured.