Edward O. Wilson

The true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically as interesting as any poetry.

People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another.

We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.

The worst thing that happens to scientists is the hardening of the categories into which they shove reality.

It's always been a dream of mine to be an astronaut, but I know my place is here on Earth.

The biological origins of art are neither incidental nor accidental, but forged in the evolutionary history of the species.

Every kid has a bug phase.

Science is not just a body of knowledge, but a way of thinking.

The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a higher level of wealth and health and, above all, to a greater appreciation of the natural world.

I doubt that religion can survive deep evolutionary analysis.

The more we know of the true nature of the world, the more we should love it.

Sociobiology is the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior.

Without a vision of the future, we are lost.

The extinction of a species is a tragedy; a loss of part of the universe's imagination.

True cynicism consists in seeing things as they are, not as we wish them to be.

Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects.

We have decommissioned natural selection.

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

Humanity is a biological species, trying to adapt to a world of its own making.

I was a senior in high school when I first had a serious interest in biology.