E. O. Wilson – 30 Quotes

30 Quotes by E. O. Wilson

People respect nonfiction but they read novels.

– E. O. Wilson

Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.

– E. O. Wilson

In my heart, I’m an Alabaman who went up north to work.

– E. O. Wilson

True character arises from a deeper well than religion.

– E. O. Wilson

The education of women is the best way to save the environment.

– E. O. Wilson

The work on ants has profoundly affected the way I think about humans.

– E. O. Wilson

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.

– E. O. Wilson

For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization.

– E. O. Wilson

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

– E. O. Wilson

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

– E. O. Wilson

Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds… is not productive.

– E. O. Wilson

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.

– E. O. Wilson

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

I was a senior in high school when I decided I wanted to work on ants as a career. I just fell in love with them, and have never regretted it.

– E. O. Wilson

If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.

– E. O. Wilson

I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.

– E. O. Wilson

Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength.

– E. O. Wilson

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

Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.

– E. O. Wilson

Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?

– E. O. Wilson

But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.

– E. O. Wilson

I thought perhaps it should be recognized that religious people, including fundamentalists, are quite intelligent, many of them are highly educated, and they should be treated with complete respect.

– E. O. Wilson

I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn’t intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.

– E. O. Wilson

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

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

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

The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it’s Southern Baptist or Islam or any religion that believes in a supernatural supervalance over humanity.

– E. O. Wilson

The essence of humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?

– E. O. Wilson

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.

– E. O. Wilson

So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the world.

– E. O. Wilson