Edward Wilson Quotations

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?

Giants exist as a state of mind. They are defined not as an absolute measurement but as a proportionality. . . . So giants can be real, even if adults do not choose to classify them as such.

Here we are at the rheas. That's now known as Darwin's rhea, and it lived about 1,000 kilometers south of the larger variety.

I saw it as a splendid opportunity to trace his intellectual development, starting with the voyage aboard the Beagle. He hit upon natural selection at a fairly early stage and his life was really one long argument about the questions it raised.

Most children have a bug period, and I never grew out of mine.

We propose this with great caution, ... The evidence, after all, only applies strongly to insects. Human altruism and tight-knit societies may well have evolved differently. But if it is true, it would help us understand the group aggression and warfare so widespread today. Those who study human biology and behavior should take a new look at this possibility.

Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies . . . I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.

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

Earth is a little-known planet. We have little appreciation for what we're doing. ... We are flying blind,

For every person in the world to reach the present U.S. level of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet earths.

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

Human activity equals a decline of the rest of life on earth,

Human beings live -- literally live, as if life is equated with the mind -- by symbols, particularly words, because the brain is constructed to process information almost exclusively in their terms.

Colonies with lower relatedness among the workers often have higher growth and reproduction rates than those with higher relatedness,