Family Quote by Lewis Thomas

“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

We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness…

— Lewis Thomas

“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

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

If an idea cannot move on its own, pushing it doesn't help; best to let it lie there.

— Lewis Thomas

Left to ourselves, mechanistic and autonomic, we hanker for friends.

— Lewis Thomas

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

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

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

I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach into outer space on the Voyager spacecraft. But that would be boasting.

— Lewis Thomas

“Nature abhors a long silence.”

— Lewis Thomas

“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