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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“True character arises from a deeper well than religion.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“People respect nonfiction but they read novels.”

“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.”

“Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.”

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

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