Quotes By E. O. Wilson
What's been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.
E. O. Wilson
I thought perhaps it should be recognized that religious people, including fundamentalists, are quite intelligent, many of them are highly educated, and they should be treated with complete respect.
E. O. Wilson
I was a senior in high school when I decided I wanted to work on ants as a career. I just fell in love with them, and have never regretted it.
E. O. Wilson
By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.
E. O. Wilson
You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.
E. O. Wilson
What we need is an electronic encyclopedia of life, with one page for each species. On each page is given everything known about that species.
E. O. Wilson
Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength.
E. O. Wilson
It's always been a great survival value for people to believe they belong to a superior tribe. That's just in human relationships.
E. O. Wilson
The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it's Southern Baptist or Islam or any religion that believes in a supernatural supervalance over humanity.
E. O. Wilson
To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.
E. O. Wilson
The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?
E. O. Wilson
When you get into the whole field of exploring, probably 90 percent of the kinds of organisms, plants, animals and especially microorganisms and tiny invertebrate animals are unknown. Then you realize that we live on a relatively unexplored plan.
E. O. Wilson
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
E. O. Wilson
'The Creation' presents an argument for saving biological diversity on Earth. Most of the book is for as broad an audience as possible.
E. O. Wilson
The 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. Wilson
Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not productive.
E. O. Wilson
The historical circumstance of interest is that the tropical rain forests have persisted over broad parts of the continents since their origins as stronghold of the flowering plants 150 million years ago.
E. O. Wilson
Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we're hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.
E. O. Wilson
Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.
E. O. Wilson
For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization.
E. O. Wilson
Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass.
E. O. Wilson