Quotes By E. O. Wilson
I had reached a point in my career in which I was ready to try something new in my writing, and the idea of a novel has always been in the back of my mind.
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
Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
E. O. Wilson
By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.
E. O. Wilson
The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.
E. O. Wilson
Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects. There are millions of species of organisms and we know almost nothing about them.
E. O. Wilson
America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost.
E. O. Wilson
Jehovah had nothing to say to Moses and the others about the care of the planet. He had plenty to say about tribal loyalty and conquest.
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
Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?
E. O. Wilson
Of course, there is no reconciliation between the theory of evolution by natural selection and the traditional religious view of the origin of the human mind.
E. O. Wilson
So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the world.
E. O. Wilson
One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period.
E. O. Wilson
If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.
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
There doesn't seem to be any other way of creating the next green revolution without GMOs.
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 two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can.
E. O. Wilson
For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization.
E. O. Wilson
I've found that good dialogue tells you not only what people are saying or how they're communicating but it tells you a great deal - by dialect and tone, content and circumstance - about the quality of the character.
E. O. Wilson
If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.
E. O. Wilson
In some ways, I had a traditional 'old South' upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an inoculum of the military ethic that is still with me today: honor, duty, loyalty.
E. O. Wilson
If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
E. O. Wilson