Edward O. Wilson quote: "When the martyr's righteous forebrain is exploded by the executioner's bullet and his mind disintegrates, what then? Can we safely assume that all those millions of neural circuits will be reconstituted in an immaterial state, so the conscious mind carries on?"

I will be brief. Not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the world's shortest speech. He said...
EDWARD O. WILSON

It's like having astronomy without knowing where the stars are.
EDWARD O. WILSON

Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong
EDWARD O. WILSON

In a purely technical sense, each species of higher organism is richer in information than a Caravag...
EDWARD O. WILSON

A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoid...
EDWARD O. WILSON

The larger the pie, the greater number of possible slices big enough to sustain the lives of individ...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelat...
EDWARD O. WILSON

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the b...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Darwin's dice have rolled badly for Earth. The human species is, in a word, an environmental abnorma...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies . . . I owe them a gre...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
EDWARD O. WILSON

Science is not marginal. Like art, it is a universal possession of humanity, and scientific knowledg...
EDWARD O. WILSON

If insemination were the sole biological function of sex, it could be achieved far more economically...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
EDWARD O. WILSON

It's obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better qua...
EDWARD O. WILSON

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synth...
EDWARD O. WILSON

I saw it as a splendid opportunity to trace his intellectual development, starting with the voyage a...
EDWARD O. WILSON

I am an optimist by nature. But I have to admit, it's getting kind of scary.
EDWARD O. WILSON

Earth is a little-known planet. We have little appreciation for what we're doing. ... We are flying ...
EDWARD O. WILSON

We propose this with great caution, ... The evidence, after all, only applies strongly to insects. H...
EDWARD O. WILSON

For every person in the world to reach the present U.S. level of consumption with existing technolog...
EDWARD O. WILSON

[It is] surpassingly strange, ... put their common sense on hold.
EDWARD O. WILSON

The brain and its satellite glands have now been probed to the point where no particular site remain...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Giants exist as a state of mind. They are defined not as an absolute measurement but as a proportion...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the "environmentalist" view, as though it were a lobby...
EDWARD O. WILSON

There is no better high than discovery.
EDWARD O. WILSON

Humanity is part of nature, a species that evolved among other species. The more closely we identify...
EDWARD O. WILSON

People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, ho...
EDWARD O. WILSON

To genetic evolution, the human lineage has added the parallel track of cultural evolution.
EDWARD O. WILSON

When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
EDWARD O. WILSON

In the end ... success or failure will come down to an ethical decision, one on which those now livi...
EDWARD O. WILSON

True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principle...
EDWARD O. WILSON

The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.
EDWARD O. WILSON

If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. ...
EDWARD O. WILSON

People would rather believe than know.
EDWARD O. WILSON

All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among th...
EDWARD O. WILSON

A lifetime can be spent in a Magellanic voyage around the trunk of a single tree.
EDWARD O. WILSON

The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard o...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Would I be happy if I discovered that I could go to heaven forever? And the answer is no. Consider t...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Human activity equals a decline of the rest of life on earth,
EDWARD O. WILSON

Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species
EDWARD O. WILSON

The organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA.
EDWARD O. WILSON

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium t...
EDWARD O. WILSON

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
EDWARD O. WILSON

The historical circumstance of interest is that the tropical rain forests have persisted over broad ...
EDWARD O. WILSON

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and d...
EDWARD O. WILSON

One planet, one experiment.
EDWARD O. WILSON

Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobby...
EDWARD O. WILSON

One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period.
E. O. WILSON

By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was jus...
E. O. WILSON

The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority ...
E. O. WILSON

Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not pr...
E. O. WILSON

Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were...
E. O. WILSON

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and ...
E. O. WILSON

Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contes...
E. O. WILSON

The education of women is the best way to save the environment.
E. O. WILSON

If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mos...
E. O. WILSON

I doubt that most people with short-term thinking love the natural world enough to save it.
E. O. WILSON

There is no better high than discovery.
E. O. WILSON

Every kid has a bug period... I never grew out of mine.
E. O. WILSON

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synth...
E. O. WILSON

So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was ...
E. O. WILSON

I grew up as a Southern Baptist with strict adherence to the Bible, which I read as a youngster.
E. O. WILSON

In 2010, my two Harvard mathematician colleagues and I dismantled kin-selection theory, which was th...
E. O. WILSON

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, a...
E. O. WILSON

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
E. O. WILSON

We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to und...
E. O. WILSON

It's always been a great survival value for people to believe they belong to a superior tribe. T...
E. O. WILSON

Real biologists who actually do the research will tell you that they almost never find a phenomenon,...
E. O. WILSON

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium t...
E. O. WILSON

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
E. O. WILSON

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the b...
E. O. WILSON

Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science for its part will test ...
E. O. WILSON

I'm very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness, a dee...
E. O. WILSON

Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelat...
E. O. WILSON

All three of the Abrahamic religions were born and nurtured in arid, disturbed environments.
E. O. WILSON

Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.
E. O. WILSON

The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from th...
E. O. WILSON

It's obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better...
E. O. WILSON

Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they've had a great impact on habitats almost al...
E. O. WILSON

Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the bioma...
E. O. WILSON

Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects. There are millions of species of organism...
E. O. WILSON

In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ec...
E. O. WILSON

The work on ants has profoundly affected the way I think about humans.
E. O. WILSON

Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.
E. O. WILSON

The ant world is a tumult, a noisy world of pheromones being passed back and forth.
E. O. WILSON

An individual ant, even though it has a brain about a millionth of a size of a human being's, ca...
E. O. WILSON

When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
E. O. WILSON

People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, ho...
E. O. WILSON

Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever...
E. O. WILSON

Companies that are willing to share, to withhold in order to further the growth of the company, will...
E. O. WILSON

Our brain is mapping the world. Often that map is distorted, but it's a map with constant immedi...
E. O. WILSON

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth a...
E. O. WILSON

I've found that good dialogue tells you not only what people are saying or how they're commu...
E. O. WILSON

Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably fal...
E. O. WILSON

Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great de...
E. O. WILSON

The historical circumstance of interest is that the tropical rain forests have persisted over broad ...
E. O. WILSON

If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. ...
E. O. WILSON

I thought perhaps it should be recognized that religious people, including fundamentalists, are quit...
E. O. WILSON

What we need is an electronic encyclopedia of life, with one page for each species. On each page is ...
E. O. WILSON

The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the re...
E. O. WILSON

I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and...
E. O. WILSON

Jehovah had nothing to say to Moses and the others about the care of the planet. He had plenty to sa...
E. O. WILSON

To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they ...
E. O. WILSON

In some ways, I had a traditional 'old South' upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in ...
E. O. WILSON

What's been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology ...
E. O. WILSON

America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of ...
E. O. WILSON

Of course, there is no reconciliation between the theory of evolution by natural selection and the t...
E. O. WILSON

Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of reli...
E. O. WILSON

Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we're hard-wired to form triba...
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 lo...
E. O. WILSON

A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoid...
E. O. WILSON

Once I feel I'm right, I have enjoyed provoking.
E. O. WILSON

True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
E. O. WILSON

We don't need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth's surface remaining in tropical rain ...
E. O. WILSON

In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.
E. O. WILSON

Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially d...
E. O. WILSON

Because the living environment is what really sustains us.
E. O. WILSON

Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up ...
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 ...
E. O. WILSON

It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer.
E. O. WILSON

I tend to believe that religious dogma is a consequence of evolution.
E. O. WILSON

For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organizati...
E. O. WILSON

It's like having astronomy without knowing where the stars are.
E. O. WILSON

In my heart, I'm an Alabaman who went up north to work.
E. O. WILSON

But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving an...
E. O. WILSON

'The Creation' presents an argument for saving biological diversity on Earth. Most of the bo...
E. O. WILSON

People respect nonfiction but they read novels.
E. O. WILSON

It's always been a dream of mine, of exploring the living world, of classifying all the species ...
E. O. WILSON

Ideas emerge when a part of the real or imagined world is studied for its own sake.
E. O. WILSON

When you get into the whole field of exploring, probably 90 percent of the kinds of organisms, plant...
E. O. WILSON

We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It&#...
E. O. WILSON

We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we ...
E. O. WILSON

The world depends on fungi, because they are major players in the cycling of materials and energy ar...
E. O. WILSON

Even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart.
E. O. WILSON

There doesn't seem to be any other way of creating the next green revolution without GMOs.
E. O. WILSON

The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.
E. O. WILSON

Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
E. O. WILSON

The person of wisdom is the person of years.
EDWARD

The thing that impresses me most about Americans is the way parents obey their children.
EDWARD

Some follow ideas. Others think of them.
EDWARD

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
O. HENRY

You have to open up on stage.
KAREN O

I was a complete outsider in high school.
KAREN O

My onstage persona really is a persona, you know, and really the moment I step onstage, it kind of k...
KAREN O

Being on the road with rock, it's pretty much 90 percent guys.
KAREN O

Bands that I've loved over the years are the ones that have a certain myth around them.
KAREN O

Well, Freddie Mercury is a really huge rock star in my head. I've always thought he was just so ...
KAREN O

I love bass, I really do. Bass is ace!
KAREN O

I plead total ignorance to Led Zeppelin. I am totally in the dark about them.
KAREN O

Yeah, I can't separate the art from the music and the music from the art. I think that stems fro...
KAREN O

I was just totally taken by Michael Jackson when I was a little kid, like everyone else.
KAREN O

Working pretty much nonstop as an artist, the hardest thing is to know what to do with yourself when...
KAREN O

I feel like every five to seven years I really need to put myself in this position of discomfort and...
KAREN O

I feel like there's a hunger in the culture now for the live experience maybe as a counterpoint ...
KAREN O

Sophomore records are historically really difficult.
KAREN O

I'm not a 21-year-old angsty self-destructive rapscallion anymore.
KAREN O

For me, California is all about rest, relaxation, space.
KAREN O

I'm in the camp that needs to discover and take risks, sometimes it's with the promise of so...
KAREN O

I'm not a quitter. I believe in following things through.
KAREN O

By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.
O. HENRY

The Venturer is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he trave...
O. HENRY

I never have time to read now. I did all my reading before I was twenty.
O. HENRY

It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
O. HENRY

It'll be a great place if they ever finish it.
O. HENRY

Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn...
O. HENRY

East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of peopl...
O. HENRY

When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
O. HENRY

Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
O. HENRY

By rights you're a king. If I was you, I'd call for a new deal.
O. HENRY

It brings up happy old days when I was only a farmer and not an agriculturist.
O. HENRY

If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.
O. HENRY

I have been called 'The American De Maupassant.' Well, I never wrote a filthy word in my lif...
O. HENRY

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim owner...
O. HENRY

Write what you like; there is no other rule.
O. HENRY

I guess I just always imagined that I was going to die, like, somehow on top. I was going to, like, ...
STEVE-O

What else can you expect from a town that's shut off from the world by the ocean on one side and New...
O. HENRY

Turn up the lights. I don't want to go home in the dark.
O. HENRY

The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.
O. HENRY

It is said that love makes the world go 'round - the announcement lacks verification. It's w...
O. HENRY

I'm a proud vegan, whistle-blower, and animal rights activist.
STEVE-O

Rather than wait to be discovered, discover yourself. Whatever it is that you intend to do later, st...
STEVE-O

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words wh...
O. HENRY

Turn up the lights. I don't want to go home in the dark.
O. HENRY

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
O. HENRY

We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us.
O. HENRY

All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the soci...
O. HENRY

There's definitely some parallels between me and Joaquin Phoenix, I think. The line gets so blur...
STEVE-O

Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citiz...
O. HENRY

Almost as soon as I went vegan, people started telling me that my skin looked great, and that I appe...
STEVE-O

I never contemplated any kind of existence or identity after my career. I never thought at some poin...
STEVE-O

The people of the State of Texas consist principally of men, women, and children, with a sprinkling ...
O. HENRY

The psychiatric ward was a really creepy place and, hindsight being 20/20, the creepiest thing about...
STEVE-O

I started out making skateboard videos. Soon, it dawned on me I just wasn't that great at skateb...
STEVE-O

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim owne...
O. HENRY

It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
O. HENRY

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
O. HENRY

It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.
O. HENRY

A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
O. HENRY

When the martyr's righteous forebrain is exploded by the executioner's bullet and his mind disintegrates, what then? Can we safely assume that all those millions of neural circuits will be reconstituted in an immaterial state, so the conscious mind carries on?

Copied!

Edward O. Wilson

When the martyr's righteous forebrain is exploded by the executioner's bullet and his mind disintegrates, what then? Can we safely assume that all those millions of neural circuits will be reconstituted in an immaterial state, so the conscious mind carries on?

Edward O. Wilson

Share:

Related

More Edward O. Wilson