Lewis Thomas

We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over…

— Lewis Thomas

The dilemma of modern medicine, and the underlying central flaw in medical education and, most of all, in the training of interns,…

— Lewis Thomas

Viewed from the distance of the moon, the astonishing thing about the earth, catching the breath, is that it is alive. The…

— Lewis Thomas

I cannot think of a single field in biology or medicine in which we can claim genuine understanding, and it seems to…

— Lewis Thomas

Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path…

— Lewis Thomas

We carry stores of DNA in our nuclei that may have come in, at one time or another, from the fusion of…

— Lewis Thomas

As a species, taking all in all, we are still too young, too juvenile, to be trusted. We have spread across the…

— Lewis Thomas

I suggest that the introductory courses in science, at all levels from grade school through college, be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals,…

— Lewis Thomas

The drive to be useful is encoded in our genes. But when we gather in very large numbers, as in the modern…

— Lewis Thomas

We are told that the trouble with modern man is that he has been trying to detach himself from nature... In this…

— Lewis Thomas

Very few recognize science as the high adventure it really is, the wildest of all explorations ever taken by human beings, the…

— Lewis Thomas

I won't compare ants and people, but ants give us a useful model of how single members of a community can become…

— Lewis Thomas

Most of the time I've worked in labs if I didn't encounter something in a week entirely unexpected and surprising I'd consider…

— Lewis Thomas