It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We do not understand much of anything, from... the "big bang" , all the way down to the particles in the atoms… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
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 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… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We are not like the social insects. They have only the one way of doing things and they will do it forever,… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
My mitochondria comprise a very large proportion of me. I cannot do the calculation, but I suppose there is almost as much… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Although I usually think I know what I'm going to be writing about, what I'm going to say, most of the time… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
Mistakes are at the very base of human thought, embedded there, feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We are at our human finest, dancing with our minds, when there are more choices than two. Sometimes there are ten, even… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is no go. I cannot think… — Lewis Thomas Copy Share Image
We habitually engage in meddling with nature. Until this century most of this meddling was good. Witness the preservation of the European… — 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
