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I turned to the teeming small creatures that can be held between the thumb and forefinger: the little things that compose the foundation of our ecosystems, the little things, as I like to say, who run the world.

E. O. Wilson

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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
World
Foundation
Forefinger
Creatures
Teeming
Small
Thumb
Running
Compose
Littles
Ecosystems
Little
Thumbs
Things
Held
Like
Turned

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Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.
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We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.
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Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.
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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.
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Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others. It is not obedience to authority, and while it is often consistent with and reinforced by religious belief, it is not piety.
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We've got paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technologies.
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'The Creation' presents an argument for saving biological diversity on Earth. Most of the book is for as broad an audience as possible.
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True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
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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.
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Even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart.
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And pigs may fly. And we may be able to terraform and send surface populations to Mars. And Jesus may come next week anyway, so it doesn't matter one way or the other. All these crazy things run through people's minds.
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Every kid has a bug period... I never grew out of mine.
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In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.
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The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions medieval institutions and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.
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One difference between ants and humans is that while ants send their old women off to war, humans send their young men.
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The beginning of wisdom, as the Chinese say, is calling things by their right names.
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Human nature is deeper and broader than the artificial contrivance of any existing culture.
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We use pandas and eagles and things. I'd love to see a wilderness society with an angry-looking wolverine as their logo.
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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.
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Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.
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