Biological Autonomy Quotes

Life must be considered sui generis; it is not a form of energy, nor can it be expressed in terms of something else.

No intelligent supervisor, no mystic force, no conscious controlling agency swings the molecules into place at the right time, chooses the appropriate players, closes the links, uncouples the partners, moves them on. The dance of life is spontaneous, self-sustaining, and self-creating.

And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry.

The secret of life does not lie in its chemical basis . . . Life succeeds precisely because it evades chemical imperatives.

Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.

The stability of the internal medium is a primary condition for the freedom and independence of certain living bodies in relation to the environment surrounding them.

TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.

The essential quality of an animal is that it seeks its own living, whereas a vegetable has its living brought to it.

Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.