We pass thoughts around, from mind to mind, so compulsively and with such speed that the brains of mankind often appear, functionally, to be undergoing fusion. Lewis Thomas More Quotes by Lewis Thomas More Quotes From Lewis Thomas Selfness is an essential fact of life. The thought of nonselfness, precise sameness is terrifying. Lewis Thomas philosophy history art Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrasment...They do everything but watch television. Lewis Thomas sarcasm sarcastic watches 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 nature science mean If we have learned anything at all in this century, it is that all new technologies will be put to use, sooner or later, for better or worse, as it is in our nature to do. Lewis Thomas century technology use The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand. Lewis Thomas language matter hands If you want to use a cliche you must take full responsibility for it yourself and not try to fob it off on anon., or on society. Lewis Thomas responsibility trying reality It is a distortion, with something profoundly disloyal about it, to picture the human being as a teetering, fallible contraption, always needing, watching and patching, always on the verge of flapping to pieces. Lewis Thomas flapping pieces health It's just plain learning something that you didn't know. There is a real aesthetic experience in being dumbfounded. Lewis Thomas aesthetic learning real I will confess that I have no more sense of what goes on in the mind of mankind than I have for the mind of an ant. Lewis Thomas ants goes-on mind It is from the progeny of this parent cell that we all take our looks; we still share genes around, and the resemblance of the enzymes of grasses to those of whales is in fact a family resemblance. Lewis Thomas resemblance-is whales cells Man is embedded in nature. Lewis Thomas embedded nature men Given any new technology for transmitting information, we seem bound to use it for great quantities of small talk. We are only saved by music from being overwhelmed by nonsense. Lewis Thomas information technology use The whole dear notion of one's own Self-marvelous old free-willed, free- enterprising, autonomous, independent, isolated island of a Self- is a myth. Lewis Thomas independent self islands We still think of human disease as the work of an organized, modernized kind of demonology, in which the bacteria are the most visible and centrally placed of our adversaries. We assume that they must somehow relish what they do. Lewis Thomas disease sleep thinking The earliest sensation at the onset of illness, often preceding the recognition of identifiable symptoms, is apprehension. Something has gone wrong, and a glimpse of mortality shifts somewhere deep in the mind. It is the most ancient of our fears. Lewis Thomas glimpse gone mind Of all celestial bodies within reach or view, as far as we can see, out to the edge, the most wonderful and marvellous and mysterious is turning out to be our own planet earth. There is nothing to match it anywhere, not yet anyway. Lewis Thomas body earth views 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 covering earth years Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one's own genes in the generations to follow. Lewis Thomas persistence survival mean We spend our time sending messages to each other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with our lives. Lewis Thomas communication trying talking We are spectacular splendid manifestations of life. We have language. We have affection. And finally, and perhaps best of all, we have music. Lewis Thomas affection splendid language
