At this early stage in our evolution, now through our infancy and into our childhood and then, with luck, our growing up,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Any species capable of producing, at this earliest, juvenile stage of its development... the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, cannot be all… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
I do not agree with this century's fashion of running down the human species as a failed try, a doomed sport. At… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Animals have genes for altruism, and those genes have been selected in the evolution of many creatures because of the advantage they… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
It is my belief, based partly on personal experience but partly also arrived at by looking around at others, that childhood lasts… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Once you have become permanently startled, as I am, by the realization that we are a social species, you tend to keep… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
I am entitled to say, if I like, that awareness exists in all the individual creatures on the planet-worms, sea urchins, gnats,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Animals, even plants, lie to each other all the time, and we could restrict the research to them, putting off the real… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
As a species, taking all in all, we are still too young, too juvenile, to be trusted. We have spread across the… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
I am a member of a fragile species, still new to the earth, the youngest creatures of any scale, here only a… — 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
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
If an idea cannot move on its own, pushing it doesn't help; best to let it lie there. — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
