The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
It hurts the spirit, somehow, to read the word environments, when the plural means that there are so many alternatives there to… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We can take some gratification at having come a certain distance in just a few thousand years of our existence as language… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We are spectacular splendid manifestations of life. We have language. We have affection. And finally, and perhaps best of all, we have… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
As evolutionary time is measured, we have only just turned up and have hardly had time to catch breath, still marveling at… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Perhaps the safest thing to do at the outset, if technology permits, is to send music. This language may be the best… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“Perhaps it is in this respect that language differs most sharply from other biologic systems for communication. Ambiguity seems to be an… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
“We are endowed with genes which code out our reaction to beavers and otters, maybe our reaction to each other as well. We are… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
“It is not a simple thing to decide where we fit, for at one time or another in our lives we manage to organize… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be enchanted by… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
If an idea cannot move on its own, pushing it doesn't help; best to let it lie there. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
I do not agree with this century's fashion of running down the human species as a failed try, a doomed sport. At our worst,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
It would seem to me... an offense against nature, for us to come on the same scene endowed as we are with the curiosity,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
The drive to be useful is encoded in our genes. But when we gather in very large numbers, as in the modern nation-state, we… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach into outer space on the Voyager spacecraft. But that would be boasting. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
“The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature;… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
“The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
Having long suspected that there was something alive in there, running the place, separate from everything else, absolutely individual and independent, we've celebrated by… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share
