We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
I think that's my nature, to want to bring people together rather than to try to bombard them into agreement. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
I doubt that most people with short-term thinking love the natural world enough to save it. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
[The natural world cleans water, pollinates plants and provides pharmaceuticals, among many other gifts.] Thirty trillion dollars worth of services, scot-free to… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Biological diversity is the key to the maintenance of the world as we know it... Eliminate one species, and another increases to… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Evolution by natural selection is not an idle hypothesis. The genetic variation on which selection acts is well understood in principle all… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
The vast majority of species that are vanishing, we haven't even discovered yet. How can you possibly put them back in nature… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
It's obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life -… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Look closely at nature. Every species is a masterpiece, exquisitely adapted to the particular environment in which it has survived. Who are… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
We don't know nearly enough about the complexities of Nature. If we think we can eliminate natural ecosystems and substitute prosthetic devices,… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Known as the biosphere to scientists and as the creation to theologians, all of life together consists of a membrane around earth… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
If enough species are extinguished, will the ecosystems collapse, and will the extinction of most other species follow soon afterward? The only… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
[P]rescientific people... could never guess the nature of physical reality beyond the tiny sphere attainable by unaided common sense. Nothing else ever… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Without the instruments and accumulated knowledge of the natural sciences... humans are trapped in a cognitive prison. They are like intelligent fish… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
We have to create a sustainable environment, worldwide, and we're not doing it. The best thing we can do with the rest… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
The green prehuman earth is the mystery we were chosen to solve, a guide to the birthplace of our spirit, but it… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
The commitment must be much deeper - to let no species knowingly die; to take all reasonable action to protect every species… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Biophilia: the innate pleasure from living abundance and diversity as manifested by the human impulse to imitate Nature with gardens. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
We use pandas and eagles and things. I'd love to see a wilderness society with an angry-looking wolverine as their logo. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
In the process of natural selection, then, any device that can insert a higher proportion of certain genes into subsequent generations will… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us. Soon we must look… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Nature first, then theory. Or, better, Nature and theory closely intertwined while you throw all your intellectual capital at the subject. Love… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
That's the way to get young people. Once they see there are wonderful things to hunt for, to rediscover a species that… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Every ecosystem, even a small one, is sustainable because it has certain ensembles and conditions and influences that are unique to it.… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
It's always been a dream of mine, of exploring the living world, of classifying all the species and finding out what makes up the… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
The commitment must be much deeper - to let no species knowingly die; to take all reasonable action to protect every species and race… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
Science is not marginal. Like art, it is a universal possession of humanity, and scientific knowledge has become a vital part of our species'… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
The living environment is the biosphere, the thin layer around the world of living organisms. We're part of that. Our existence is dependent on… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it's Southern Baptist or Islam… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems. — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
The extinctions ongoing worldwide promise to be at least as great as the mass extinction that occurred at the end of the age of… — E. O. Wilson Copy Share Image
![“[The natural world cleans water, pollinates plants and provides pharmaceuticals, among many other gifts.] Thirty trillion dollars worth of services, scot-free to humanity, every year.” quote by E. O. Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/869/e-o-wilson-1348_dollars_the-natural-world-cleans-water-pollinate_253878.jpg)
![“[P]rescientific people... could never guess the nature of physical reality beyond the tiny sphere attainable by unaided common sense. Nothing else ever worked, no exercise from myth, revelation, art, trance, or any other conceivable means; and notwithstanding the emotional satisfaction it gives…” quote by E. O. Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/0d0/e-o-wilson-1348_art_p-rescientific-people-could-never-guess_717283.jpg)
