Whales Quote by Cormac McCarthy
““Whales have been evolving for thirty million years. To our one million. A sperm whale’s brain is seven times the size of mine… The great size of his body has little to do with the great size of his brain, other than as a place to keep it. I have What If fantasies… What if the catalyst or the key to understanding creation lay somewhere in the immense mind of the whale? … Some species go for months without eating anything. Just completely idle.. So they have this incredible mental apparatus and no one has the least notion what they do with it. Lilly says that the most logical supposition, based on physiological and ecological evidence, is that they contemplate the universe… Suppose God came back from wherever it is he’s been and asked us smilingly if we’d figure it out yet. Suppose he wanted to know if it had finally occurred to us to ask the whale. And then he sort of looked around and he said, “By the way, where are the whales?””
About This Quote
Source Speech: Interview, 2015
The quote muses on the immense, largely unknown intelligence of whales, suggesting they might contemplate existence and hold cosmic insight.
In simple terms: Whales may be incredibly intelligent and possibly think about the universe.
Key Takeaway
Consider the unknown depths of animal cognition.
Themes
nature
intelligence
cosmic
philosophy
Mood
curious
speculative
thoughtful
Type
philosophical
inspirational
When to use this quote
- marine research
- philosophical inquiry
- creative writing
- public speaking
Key Concepts
consciousness
evolution
anthropocentrism
Questions to Reflect On
- What evidence would change our view of whale cognition?
- How does attributing cosmic thought to whales affect our environmental ethics?
A Different Perspective
The speculation may anthropomorphize whales without scientific evidence.
![“[Footnote:] Pliny the Elder described a Whale called "Balaena or Whirlpool, which is so long and broad as to take up more in length and breadth than two acres of ground." This brings up again the old question: Are the classics doomed? Our ancestors believed that four years of this sort of…” quote by Will Cuppy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/1c1/will-cuppy-7569_acres_footnote-pliny-the-elder-described-a-wha_84284.jpg)
