Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.
E. O. WILSONWithout a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.
E. O. WILSONPeople respect nonfiction but they read novels.
E. O. WILSONReligious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we’re hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.
E. O. WILSONI tend to believe that religious dogma is a consequence of evolution.
E. O. WILSONThe one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats.
E. O. WILSONAnts are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.
E. O. WILSONWe 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. WILSONIf history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
E. O. WILSONA very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.
E. O. WILSONOne thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period.
E. O. WILSONAim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure.
E. O. WILSONIndividual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.
E. O. WILSONIn some ways, I had a traditional ‘old South’ upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an
E. O. WILSONThe variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.
E. O. WILSONBecause the living environment is what really sustains us.
E. O. WILSONWell, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They’re the cemetery workers.
E. O. WILSON