24 Lewis Thomas Quotes for You to Enjoy

Lewis Thomas

American Scientist

Born: Nov 25, 1913

Died: Dec 3, 1993

Few Nature Science Think Time You

Related authors: Ben Carson Carl Sagan E. O. Wilson George Washington Carver Isaac Asimov Margaret Mead Neil deGrasse Tyson W. Edwards Deming

I won't compare ants and people, but ants give us a useful model of how single members of a community can become so organized that they end up resembling, in effect, one big collective brain. Our own exploding population and communication technology are leading us that way. Lewis Thomas

Technology Communication People Collective Single Big Become Own Community Our Way Members Give Leading How Brain Effect End Up Model Ants Exploding Us Useful Organized Resembling Compare Population

As a species, taking all in all, we are still too young, too juvenile, to be trusted. We have spread across the face of the earth in just a few thousand years, no time at all as evolution clocks time, covering all livable parts of the planet, endangering other forms of life, and now threatening ourselves. Lewis Thomas

Life Time Face Few Young Too Other Earth Evolution Ourselves Thousand Thousand Years Threatening No Time Taking Parts Spread Still Years Covering Clocks Trusted Just Forms Juvenile Planet Across Livable Now Species

Our behavior toward each other is the strangest, most unpredictable, and most unaccountable of all the phenomena with which we are obliged to live. In all of nature, there is nothing so threatening to humanity as humanity itself. Lewis Thomas

Nature Humanity Behavior Nothing Live Other Our Unaccountable Unpredictable Threatening Obliged Toward Most Itself Which Strangest Each Phenomena

We live in a dancing matrix of viruses; they dart, rather like bees, from organism to organism, from plant to insect to mammal to me and back again, and into the sea, tugging along pieces of this genome, strings of genes from that, transplanting grafts of DNA, passing around heredity as though at a great party. Lewis Thomas

Great Me Plant Party Live Back Dancing Viruses Strings Though Insect Dart Rather Genes Along Like Pieces Genome Around Passing Bees Matrix Mammal Again Organism Sea Heredity

Given the opportunity, under the right conditions, two cells from wildly different sources, a yeast cell, say, and a chicken erythrocyte, will touch, fuse, and the two nuclei will then fuse as well, and the new hybrid cell will now divide into monstrous progeny. Naked cells, lacking self-respect, do not seem to have any sense of self. Lewis Thomas

Self-Respect Opportunity Will Naked Sense Monstrous Say Wildly Fuse Seem Touch Given Hybrid Divide Self New Well Sources Yeast Conditions Chicken Cell Any Cells Lacking Different Then Now Right Progeny Two

We leave traces of ourselves wherever we go, on whatever we touch. Lewis Thomas

Whatever Ourselves Touch Traces Leave Go Wherever

There's really no such thing as the agony of dying. I'm quite sure that pain is shut off at the moment of death. You see, something happens when the body knows it's about to go. Peptide hormones are released by cells in the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. Endorphins. They attach themselves to the cells responsible for feeling pain. Lewis Thomas

Death You Feeling Pain Released Responsible See Hormones About Something Attach Gland Knows Sure Go Off Quite Cells Dying Happens Themselves Really Body Moment Agony Thing Shut

A lot of people fear death because they think that so overwhelming an experience has to be painful, but I've seen quite a few deaths, and, with one exception, I've never known anyone to undergo anything like agony. That's amazing when you think about it. I mean, how complicated the mechanism is that's being taken apart. Lewis Thomas

Death You Experience People Complicated Fear Amazing Seen Overwhelming Few Think About Exception Never Taken Like Undergo Known Because How Deaths Lot Quite Being Anyone Anything Apart Mean Painful Agony Mechanism

Most of the time I've worked in labs if I didn't encounter something in a week entirely unexpected and surprising I'd consider it a lost week. Lots of that is due to mistakes and stupidity, but it could open a new line of inquiry. Something really good turns up once in a hundred times, but it makes the whole day worthwhile. Lewis Thomas

Time Good Day Stupidity Mistakes Lost Consider Hundred Hundred Times Once Inquiry Worthwhile Entirely Something Week Could Open New Most Makes Due Line New Line Surprising Encounter Lots Up Times Labs Unexpected Worked Really Turns Whole

Human language... prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand. Lewis Thomas

Matter Language Prevents Sticking Hand Human Us Human Language

My father was a doctor, and I admired him and got along well with him. He took me with him on house calls. We were living in Flushing, which was then a sleepy village of 25,000 - before the subway got there. I've been sure I wanted to be a doctor since I was about 12. Lewis Thomas

Me Doctor Father Before Living Sleepy Took Admired About He Since Along House Well Him Calls Sure Got Were Been Wanted Which Subway Then Village

The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled. Lewis Thomas

Life Diversity Single Earth Astonishing High Some More Lightning Accountable Than Cell Probability Uniformity Derived Originally Bolt

We habitually engage in meddling with nature. Until this century most of this meddling was good. Witness the preservation of the European countryside. But since then we've smoked it up and littered it and dumped too much in too many waters. I don't think it's our privilege to behave this way. Lewis Thomas

Good Nature Witness Too Much Meddling Think Too Waters Our Way Since Countryside Most Until Smoked Dumped Up Privilege Behave Littered Century Then Much Engage European Many Preservation

We tend to think of our selves as the only wholly unique creations in nature, but it is not so. Uniqueness is so commonplace a property of living things that there is really nothing at all unique about it. A phenomenon can't be unique and universal at the same time. Lewis Thomas

I don't want to be reincarnated, that's for sure. When you've had rewarding experiences in your life - a loving family, friends - you don't need additional reassurances that you're going to do something with a new cast of characters. I'd just as soon pass. Lewis Thomas

Life Family You Additional Characters Something Cast Had Soon New Sure Pass Friends Going Just Rewarding Rewarding Experiences Want Experiences Loving Your Reincarnated Need

The earliest sensation at the onset of illness, often preceding the recognition of identifiable symptoms, is apprehension. Something has gone wrong, and a glimpse of mortality shifts somewhere deep in the mind. It is the most ancient of our fears. Lewis Thomas

Medical knowledge and technical savvy are biodegradable. The sort of medicine that was practiced in Boston or New York or Atlanta fifty years ago would be as strange to a medical student or intern today as the ceremonial dance of a !Kung San tribe would seem to a rock festival audience in Hackensack. Lewis Thomas

Today Knowledge Strange Dance Medicine Savvy Tribe Would Would-Be Atlanta Seem Boston Student New Sort Practiced Audience Rock Kung Years Years Ago Festival York New York San Ceremonial Fifty Intern Technical Medical

The central task of science is to arrive, stage by stage, at a clearer comprehension of nature, but this does not at all mean, as it is sometimes claimed to mean, a search for mastery over nature. Lewis Thomas

Nature Science Sometimes Stage Claimed Comprehension Clearer Over Mastery Does Arrive Task Central Mean Search

We're as clever as we think we are, but we'll be a lot cleverer when we learn to use not just one brain but to pool huge numbers of brains. We're at a level technologically where we can share information and think collectively about our problems. We do it in science all the time - there's no reason why we can't do it in other endeavors. Lewis Thomas

Time Science Problems Clever Pool Think Other Our Collectively About No Reason Share Learn Brain Lot Brains Huge Huge Numbers Endeavors Just Where Just One Information Use Reason Why Level Numbers

Having long suspected that there was something alive in there, running the place, separate from everything else, absolutely individual and independent, we've celebrated by giving it a real name. My self. Lewis Thomas

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