#evolution

People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take. ↗

— Emma Goldman

#independence #independent-thought #inspirational #liberty #revolution

Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive life form – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection. ↗

— Jerry A. Coyne

#natural-selection #change

If truth prevails, the contributions of a courageous physician and a brilliant engineer to the conquest of waterborne disease will still be remembered in another hundred years. ↗

— Michael J. McGuire

#drinking-water #michael-j-mcguire #public-health #the-chlorine-revolution #water

Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#evolution #noremorse #page #dating

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! ↗

— Patrick Henry

#liberty #revolution #slavery #death

The revolutionary Terror, which is attacked for its revolutionary tribunal, its law of suspects and its guillotine, was a process welded to a regime of popular sovereignty in which the object was to conquer tyranny or die for liberty. This Terror was willed by those who, having won sovereign power by dint of insurrection, refused to let this be destroyed by counter-revolutionary enemies ↗

— Sophie Wahnich

#philosophy #revolution #terrorism #the-terror #death

There were corpses here and there and pools of blood. I remember seeing a butterfly flutter up and down that street. Summer does not abdicate. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#juxtaposition #revolution #death

Large portraits of Mao on wooden boards several feet high stood at main street corners. Painted to make the old man look extremely youthful, healthy, and fat (a sign of well-being in China), these pictures provided a mocking contrast to the thin, pale-faced pedestrians walking listlessly below them. Pg. 193 ↗

— Nien Cheng

#cultural-revolution #mao-zedong #propaganda #death

From the point of view of the Chinese Communist Party, the greatest casualties of the Cultural Revolution were the Party’s prestige and its ability to govern. Pg. 539 ↗

— Nien Cheng

#communist-party-of-china #cultural-revolution #death

While I listened to the words of homage to Mao, I remembered Mao’s awesome power, like a blanket over China threatening to smother whomever he chose. Pg. 218 ↗

— Nien Cheng

#cultural-revolution #mao #death