Lewis Thomas Quotes


The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music. Lewis Thomas Science 144
The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers. Lewis Thomas Science 129
It hurts the spirit, somehow, to read the word environments, when the plural means that there are so many alternatives there to be sorted through, as in a market, and voted on. Lewis Thomas Conservation 84
Worrying is the most natural and spontaneous of all human functions. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 82
In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course – often with a great lurch – every few years. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 77
Our behavior toward each other is the strangest, most unpredictable, and most unaccountable of all the phenomena with which we are obliged to live. In all of nature, there is nothing so threatening to humanity as humanity itself. Lewis Thomas Nature 74
At this early stage in our evolution, now through our infancy and into our childhood and then, with luck, our growing up, what our species needs most of all, right now, is simply a future. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 72
Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath. Lewis Thomas Grammar 71
Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that the mere fact of our existence should keep us all in a state of contented dazzlement. Lewis Thomas Existence 67
Any species capable of producing, at this earliest, juvenile stage of its development... the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, cannot be all bad. Lewis Thomas Music 67
We are perhaps uniquely among the earths creatures the worrying animal. We worry away our lives fearing the future discontent with the present unable to take the idea of dying unable to sit still. Lewis Thomas Present 63
Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind. Lewis Thomas Music 57
The central task of science is to arrive, stage by stage, at a clearer comprehension of nature, but this does not at all mean, as it is sometimes claimed to mean, a search for mastery over nature. Lewis Thomas Nature 54
We are built to make mistakes, coded for error. Lewis Thomas Mistakes 53
The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature. Lewis Thomas Nature 53
The great secret of doctors, known only to their wives, but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves; most things, in fact, are better in the morning. Lewis Thomas Medical 47
Of all celestial bodies within reach or view, as far as we can see, out to the edge, the most wonderful and marvellous and mysterious is turning out to be our own planet earth. There is nothing to match it anywhere, not yet anyway. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 40
Once you have become permanently startled, as I am, by the realization that we are a social species, you tend to keep an eye out for the pieces of evidence that this is, by and large, good for us. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 35
If we are to be destroyed we will do it ourselves by warfare with thermonuclear weaponry. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 34
We can take some gratification at having come a certain distance in just a few thousand years of our existence as language users, but it should be a deeper satisfaction, even an exhilaration, to recognize that we have such a distance still to go. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 34
It is a distortion, with something profoundly disloyal about it, to picture the human being as a teetering, fallible contraption, always needing watching and patching, always on the verge of flapping to pieces. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 33
The earliest sensation at the onset of illness, often preceding the recognition of identifiable symptoms, is apprehension. Something has gone wrong, and a glimpse of mortality shifts somewhere deep in the mind. It is the most ancient of our fears. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 33
The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th century science has been the discovery of human ignorance Lewis Thomas Ignorance 31
Very few recognize science as the high adventure it really is, the wildest of all explorations ever taken by human beings, the chance to glimpse things never seen before, the shrewdest maneuver for discovering how the world works. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 31
It is from the progeny of this parent cell that we all take our looks; we still share genes around, and the resemblance of the enzymes of grasses to those of whales is in fact a family resemblance. Lewis Thomas Family 30
Human language... prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand. Lewis Thomas Hand 29
If you want to use a cliche you must take full responsibility for it yourself and not try to fob it off on anon., or on society. Lewis Thomas Society 29
Animals have genes for altruism, and those genes have been selected in the evolution of many creatures because of the advantage they confer for the continuing survival of the species. Lewis Thomas Uncategorized 28

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Lewis Thomas Quotes

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