E. O. Wilson Quotes

Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.

Our health relies entirely on the vitality of our fellow species on Earth.

A tree is a thought, an obstruction stopping the flow of wind and light, trapping water, housing insects, birds, and animals, and breathing in and out. How treelike the human, how human the tree.

Life on earth is such a good story you cannot afford to miss the beginning... Beneath our superficial differences we are all of us walking communities of bacteria. The world shimmers, a pointillist landscape made of tiny living beings.

The message is not so much that the worms will inherit the Earth, but that all things play a role in nature, even the lowly worm.

The creatures that inhabit this earth-be they human beings or animals-are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.

It's an appreciation for life generally, every bit of life, the smallest creature that lives in the intestines of termites that make termite life possible - to the leaves that turn out oxygen and grab carbon dioxide and with water make simple sugars that feed much of the world. I mean, these are everyday miracles.

We are all part of the ecosystem.

If you lose touch with nature you lose touch with humanity.

There is a certain consideration, and a general duty of humanity, that binds us not only to the animals, which have life and feeling, but even to the trees and plants. We owe justice to people, and kindness and benevolence to all other creatures who may be susceptible of it. There is some intercourse between them and us, and some mutual obligation.

Nowhere on the shore is the relation of a creature to its surroundings a matter of a single cause and effect; each living thing is bound to its world by many threads, weaving the intricate design of the fabric of life.

I am interested and deeply curious about our need for a spiritual life, a life of greater meaning, and how we come to a more ethical view of life within our communities that is more inclusive than exclusive, one that is extended even beyond our own species.

This earth is a garden, this life a banquet, and it's time we realized that it was given to all life, animal and man, to enjoy.

An appreciation of animals is good for a human, it can lead to a better understanding and respect for all living things.

Animals make us Human.

We cannot learn freedom and responsibility within the confines of our own species. We cannot understand life and death and what they are for in exclusively human terms. Without that which is wild, the world becomes a cell block.

It was none the less a perfectly ordinary horse, such as convergent evolution has produced in many of the places that life is to be found. They have always understood a great deal more than they let on. It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion about them.

Togetherness, for me, means teamwork. In my business of motion pictures and television entertainment, many minds and skillful hands must collaborate...T he work seeks to comprehend the spiritual and material needs and yearnings of gregarious humanity. It makes us reflect how completely dependent we are upon one another in our social and commercial life.

I have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a physical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.

I feel that one species, mankind, doesn't have the right to exterminate

The cultivation of compassion is no longer a luxury, but a necessity, if our species is to survive.

Humanity is a biological species, living in a biological environment, because like all species, we are exquisitely adapted in everything: from our behavior, to our genetics, to our physiology, to that particular environment in which we live. The earth is our home. Unless we preserve the rest of life, as a sacred duty, we will be endangering ourselves by destroying the home in which we evolved, and on which we completely depend.

Wishing kindness and compassion to all living creatures.

The transformation from separation to unity, from conflict to peace, is the goal of all spiritual traditions.

The truest state of humanity is that you're living for other people.