#iv

Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#ants #armies #beings #capture #ceaselessly

Given the opportunity, under the right conditions, two cells from wildly different sources, a yeast cell, say, and a chicken erythrocyte, will touch, fuse, and the two nuclei will then fuse as well, and the new hybrid cell will now divide into monstrous progeny. Naked cells, lacking self-respect, do not seem to have any sense of self. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#cell #cells #chicken #conditions #different

Our behavior toward each other is the strangest, most unpredictable, and most unaccountable of all the phenomena with which we are obliged to live. In all of nature, there is nothing so threatening to humanity as humanity itself. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#each #humanity #itself #live #most

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 dilemma of modern medicine, and the underlying central flaw in medical education and, most of all, in the training of interns, is the irresistible drive to do something, anything. It is expected by patients and too often agreed to by their doctors, in the face of ignorance. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#anything #central #dilemma #doctors #drive

It's kind of scary sometimes, I've seen this a lot in Asia. Children are given music lessons, very intensively I might add and involving great technical expertise sometimes, but you can tell that they have been told only to play happy pleasant music. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#asia #been #children #expertise #given

I think we learn the most from imperfect relationships - things like forgiveness and compassion. ↗

— Andrea Thompson

#forgiveness #i #i think #imperfect #learn

For kids it's natural to be competitive. ↗

— Daley Thompson

#kids #natural

Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict - alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence. ↗

— Dorothy Thompson

#aggressive #alternatives #conflict #creative #passive

But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I've failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don't get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me. ↗

— Emma Thompson

#calm #crisis #death #difficult #face