Lewis Thomas

In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course - often with a great lurch - every few years. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#best #capable #changing #course #every

It hurts the spirit, somehow, to read the word environments, when the plural means that there are so many alternatives there to be sorted through, as in a market, and voted on. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#environments #hurts #many #market #means

The great secret of doctors, known only to their wives, but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves; most things, in fact, are better in the morning. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#better #doctors #fact #get #great

Much of today's public anxiety about science is the apprehension that we may forever be overlooking the whole by an endless, obsessive preoccupation with the parts. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#anxiety #apprehension #endless #forever #may

Once you have become permanently startled, as I am, by the realization that we are a social species, you tend to keep an eye out for the pieces of evidence that this is, by and large, good for us. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#become #evidence #eye #good #i

Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#being #contented #existing #fact #here

Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one's own genes in the generations to follow. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#cool #economics #follow #generations #genes

The central task of science is to arrive, stage by stage, at a clearer comprehension of nature, but this does not at all mean, as it is sometimes claimed to mean, a search for mastery over nature. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#central #claimed #clearer #comprehension #does

The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#i #ignorant #know #most #nature

We are built to make mistakes, coded for error. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#coded #error #make #mistakes