E. O. Wilson Quotes

• To a considerable degree science consists in originating the maximum amount of information with the minimum expenditure of energy.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Important science is not just any similarity glimpsed for the first time. It offers analogies that map the gateways to unexplored terrain.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

• It came by a lightning flash like knowledge from the gods.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished, and never to be surrendered without a struggle.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Science

• There is no better high than discovery.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Discovery

• Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the “environmentalist” view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Human, Activity

• If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mankind

• The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Natural, Habitats

• If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in History

  Tags in Science

• Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Science, Human, Condition

• Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Religion

  Tags in Cultures

• Even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Empiricism

• Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Economic, Gain

• By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Thinkers, Faith

• A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Population, Economic, Growth

• We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Wisdom

• If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Imperative, Humanism

• To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Philosophical, Positions

• It’s obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life – for 8 billion or more people – without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Humanity, Life

  Tags in People

• People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.

  E. O. Wilson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Narrative

E. O. Wilson (34)

Birth:	10th June, 1929
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Biologist, Naturalist, Researcher, Theorist

About

Edward Osborne Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He is an American biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading expert. He is the Pellegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and a New York Times bestseller for The Social Conquest of Earth, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Meaning of Human Existence. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in biology in 1950. In 1955, he received his Ph.D.

Related Authors

• Stephen Jay Gould
• Jean Rostand
• Rudolf Virchow
• Theodosius Dobzhansky
• Paul R. Ehrlich
• Thomas Gold
• Maurice Wilkins
• Albert Claude
• E. O. Wilson
• Ernst Mayr

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 21st December

Births

• 1982 - Philip Humber
• 1947 - Zoe Lofgren
• 1922 - Paul Winchell
• 1918 - Kurt Waldheim
• 1795 - Leopold Von Ranke

Deaths

• 1958 - Lion Feuchtwanger
• 2001 - David Swift
• 1992 - Stella Adler
• 1889 - Joseph Barber Lightfoot
• 1935 - Kurt Tucholsky