Richard Dawkins Quotes

Politics is applied biology.

I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.

In nature, the emphasis is in what is rather than what ought to be.

It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good—nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

We should not live by Darwinian principles. But Darwin explains how we got here.

Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Evolution leads the way through desire.

Suffering is a byproduct of evolution by natural selection, an inevitable consequence that may worry us in our more sympathetic moments but cannot be expected to worry a tiger - even if a tiger can be said to worry about anything at all - and certainly cannot be expected to worry its genes.

Evolution is, as well as smarter than we are, infinitely more callous and cruel, and also capricious.

With each new day in Africa, a gazelle wakes up knowing he must outrun the fastest lion or perish. At the same time, a lion stirs and stretches, knowing he must outrun the fastest gazelle or starve. It's no different for the human race. Whether you consider yourself a gazelle or a lion, you have to run faster than others to survive.

Nature favors those organisms which leave the environment in better shape for their progeny to survive.

I think that genetically we're programmed to battle each other.

Self-defence is Nature's eldest law.

Throughout evolution, ostracism was death indeed.

All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one.

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.

Man is a competitive creature, and the seeds of conflict are built deep into our genes. We fought each other on the savannah and only survived against great odds by organising ourselves into groups which would have had a common purpose, giving morale and fortitude.

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection.

In October, 1838, … I happened to read for amusement Malthus on population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long continuous observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work

People are violent by nature. That’s why we rule the earth; we beat the crap out of everyone else.

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.

We have spent our entire existence adapting.

Evolution doesn't just look for things that are fun; if it did, we'd know how to fly.