#diversity

Humanity is a biological species, living in a biological environment, because like all species, we are exquisitely adapted in everything: from our behavior, to our genetics, to our physiology, to that particular environment in which we live. The earth is our home. Unless we preserve the rest of life, as a sacred duty, we will be endangering ourselves by destroying the home in which we evolved, and on which we completely depend. ↗

— Edward O. Wilson

#diversity #environment #evolution #preservation #science

This is the assembly of life that took a billion years to evolve. It has eaten the storms-folded them into its genes-and created the world that created us. It holds the world steady. ↗

— Edward O. Wilson

#life

One of the maxims of the new field of conservation biological control is that to control insect herbivores, you must maintain populations of insect herbivores. ↗

— Douglas Tallamy

#conservation #diversity #endangered #extinction #gardening

In following your inclinations and moving toward mastery, you make a great contribution to society, enriching it with discoveries and insights, and making the most of the diversity in nature and among human society. ↗

— Robert Greene

#inclinations #societal-contribution #nature

I tried to think the same thought in as many different religions as possible, so the thought itself wouldn't be limited by any particular way of reasoning, the way words restrict -- the whole eskimo-seventeen-words-for-snow idea. ↗

— Patricia Geary

#diversity #language #philosophy #religion

Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without. ↗

— William Sloane Coffin Jr.


#diversity

Fear of the unknown and the other is the root of almost all hate. It is born of ignorance and fed by those who would keep us divided. ↗

— Tinnekke Bebout

#fear-of-unknown #hate #ignorance #tolerance-respect #respect

[I]t's difficult to make people see that what you have been taught counts for nothing, and that the only things worth having are the things you find out for yourself. Also, that when so many brands of what Chesterton calls 'fancy souls' and theories of life are offered you, there is no sense in not looking pretty carefully to see what you are going in for. [...] It isn't a case of 'Here is the Christian religion, the one authoritative and respectable rule of life. Take it or leave it'. It's 'Here's a muddling kind of affair called Life, and here are nineteen or twenty different explanations of it, all supported by people whose opinions are not to be sneezed at. Among them is the Christian religion in which you happpen to have been brought up. Your friend so-and-so has been brought up in quite a different way of thinking; is a perfectly splendid person and thoroughly happy. What are you going to do about it?' -- I'm worrying it out quietly, and whatever I get hold of will be valuable, because I've got it for myself; but really, you know, the whole question is not as simple as it looks. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#diversity #guidance #life #meaning-of-life #self-determination

Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, revelling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community. ↗

— Bell Hooks

#community

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others... ↗

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

#empathy #empathy-diversity #empathy-psychology #prejudice #racism