E.O. Wilson

To geneticists, evolution is a fact. To Darwinists, it is a theory. To everyone else, it is a mystery.

Humanity needs a vision of an expanding and unending future.

The essence of the problem is that the selfishness gene is always with us. It is impossible to design a society that will be safe for selfish genes.

Every kid has a bug period. I never grew out of mine.

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

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

Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.

The world is not a solid, but a web of possibilities.

I doubt that religion can survive deep evolutionary analysis.

The way we conceptualize the environment is changing, and the way we relate to it is changing.

E.O. Wilson is the father of sociobiology.

The extinction of a species is a tragedy comparable to the loss of a library.

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 brain is the most complex thing in the universe.

True evolution is not just a matter of genes, but of culture and memes as well.

I am not afraid of being called a biologist of the mind.

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

Insect societies show that cooperation can evolve without altruism.

The human mind is a product of the environment it evolved in.

Biodiversity is the sum total of all life on Earth.