#species

THE TRUTH OF THE VERY SMALL When he is born, a baby's head is filled with the knowledge of space. The circumference of his skull is as infinite as the twirlings of the universe. His eyes look out with the blur of eyes which see for all species. He has remembered his own nature from past patterns. Now his heart beats through rock, sky, oceans. He feels the silence and the sound all around the world beneath his skin. We all hold somewhere deep within us the truth we accepted in innocence. The seas, the forests, the soil, the atmosphere, are all vital parts of an ongoing system. By harming any part of it we must ultimately harm ourselves. It is that simple. ↗

— Jay Woodman

#eyes #harm #head #heart #innocence

These mountains appear to be almost entirely composed of stratas of rock of various colours (mostly red) and are partially covered with a dwarfish growth of pine and cedar, which are the only species of timber to be seen. ↗

— William Henry Ashley

#appear #cedar #colours #composed #covered

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#basic #basic understanding #citizenry #deserves #how

A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. ↗

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

#become #good #greatly #himself #his

Animals have genes for altruism, and those genes have been selected in the evolution of many creatures because of the advantage they confer for the continuing survival of the species. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#altruism #because #been #confer #continuing

Any species capable of producing, at this earliest, juvenile stage of its development... the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, cannot be all bad. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#bach #bad #cannot #capable #development

As a species, taking all in all, we are still too young, too juvenile, to be trusted. We have spread across the face of the earth in just a few thousand years, no time at all as evolution clocks time, covering all livable parts of the planet, endangering other forms of life, and now threatening ourselves. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#clocks #covering #earth #endangering #evolution

At this early stage in our evolution, now through our infancy and into our childhood and then, with luck, our growing up, what our species needs most of all, right now, is simply a future. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#early #evolution #future #growing #growing up

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

I certainly look at the modern guys and think they are a different species to when we played. They are fitter and their conditioning is extraordinary. ↗

— Will Carling

#conditioning #different #extraordinary #fitter #guys