I can say, if I like, that social insects behave like the working parts of an immense central nervous system: the termite colony is an enormous brain on millions of legs; the individual termite is a mobile neurone.
Lewis ThomasRead
I do not agree with this century's fashion of running down the human species as a failed try, a doomed sport. At our worst, we may be going through the early stages of adolescence, and everyone remembers what that is like.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a belief in the potential of humanity, suggesting that our flaws are part of a developmental phase.
In this quote, Lewis Thomas argues against the pessimistic view of humanity as a failed endeavor. Instead, he compares our current state to the tumultuous and difficult times of adolescence, implying that just as young people go through challenges while maturing, so too is humanity evolving and learning from its experiences. This perspective encourages optimism about our capabilities and future growth.
Themes
HumanityGrowthOptimismAdolescencePotential
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about human progress, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of recognizing our growth.
More from Lewis Thomas
All quotes βI suggest that the introductory courses in science, at all levels from grade school through college, be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals, the so-called basics, aside for a while, and concentrate the attention of all students on the things that are not known.
Lewis ThomasRead
I maintain, despite the moment's evidence against the claim, that we are born and grow up with a fondness for each other, and we have genes for that. We can be talked out of it, for the genetic message is like a distant music, and some of us are hard-of-hearing. Societies are noisy affairs, drowning out the sound of ourselves and our connection.
Lewis ThomasRead
Science is founded on uncertainty. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that we were wrong before.
Lewis ThomasRead
It is the very strangeness of nature that makes science engrossing. That ought to be at the center of science teaching. There are more than seven-times-seven types of ambiguity in science, awaiting analysis. The poetry of Wallace Stevens is crystal-clear alongside the genetic code.
Lewis ThomasRead
In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course - often with a great lurch - every few years.
Lewis ThomasRead
Similar quotes
Surely you're not saying that God had to choose between long life and intelligence for human beings! It's there in your own Bible, Carlotta. Two trees - knowledge and life. You eat of the tree of knowledge and you will surely die. You eat of the tree of life and you remain a child in the garden forever, undying.
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To us, it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg was wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have the with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.
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He saw a lawyer killing a viper on a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind of Cain and his brother Abel.
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The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life.
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It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.
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The individual's right to pursue his own vision of the best ration of pleasure to pain: utterly sacrosanct.
David Foster WallaceRead