Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
We don't need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth's surface remaining in tropical rain forests, with most of the animal and plant species living there.
E. O. Wilson
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
E. O. Wilson
Age: 95
Born: 1929
Born: June 10
Autobiographer
Biologist
Ecologist
Entomologist
Ethologist
Evolutionary Biologist
Myrmecologist
Naturalist
Novelist
Science Writer
Birmingham
Alabama
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne
EO Wilson
E O Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson
Wilson
Edward Wilson
Junior
Needs
Species
Percent
Tree
Tropical
Animal
Remaining
Clear
Forests
Living
Surface
Earth
Plant
Need
Rain
More quotes by E. O. Wilson
An individual ant, even though it has a brain about a millionth of a size of a human being's, can learn a maze the kind we use is a simple rat maze in a laboratory. They can learn it about one-half as fast as a rat.
E. O. Wilson
[Bacteria are the] dark matter of the biological world [with 4 million mostly unknown species in a ton of soil].
E. O. Wilson
The living environment is the biosphere, the thin layer around the world of living organisms. We're part of that. Our existence is dependent on it in ways that people haven't even begun to appreciate. Our existence depends not just on its existence, but its stability and its richness.
E. O. Wilson
If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people.
E. O. Wilson
Every kid has a bug period... I never grew out of mine.
E. O. Wilson
A 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. 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
There are millions and millions of species, including organisms most people have never heard of. There is so much that waits to be told. We don't know the functions of most of them, but they may be more vital for the planet's future sustainability than we can even dream. And we have to find out we need to be doing this sort of study.
E. O. Wilson
Each of these [bacterial] species are masterpieces of evolution. Each has persisted for thousands to millions of years. Each is exquisitely adapted to the environment in which it lives, interlocked with other species to form ecosystems upon which our own lives depend in ways we have not begun even to imagine.
E. O. Wilson
The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.
E. O. Wilson
I'm very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness, a deep set obligation to others, and the virtues of charity, tolerance and generosity that we associate with traditional Christian teaching.
E. O. Wilson
Every kid has a bug period, I like to say, and I just got so fascinated and I had that experience, that wonderful life of being able to go out on my own without really any supervision at all. I just lucked out that way. I was trusted as a kid.
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
Once I feel I'm right, I have enjoyed provoking.
E. O. Wilson
People respect nonfiction but they read novels.
E. O. Wilson
Thirty trillion dollars worth of services, scot-free to humanity, every year.
E. O. Wilson
Human nature is deeper and broader than the artificial contrivance of any existing culture.
E. O. Wilson
Wonderful theory, wrong species.
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
[T]he true natural sciences lock together in theory and evidence to form the ineradicable technical base of modern civilization. The pseudosciences satisfy personal psychological needs... but lack the ideas or the means to contribute to the technical base.
E. O. Wilson
