The whole life lies in the verb seeing.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the evolutionary journey of humanity and its connection to nature.
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin reflects on the idea that human beings, as the apex of evolution among primates, are the culmination of a long and ongoing process of creation. He suggests that the traces of our evolutionary past are still present in our environment, reminding us of our roots and the gradual progression that has brought us to our current state of existence.
Themes
HumanityEvolutionCreationNatureHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might quote this to highlight our connection to nature and our evolutionary legacy.
More from Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
All quotes →Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
The mineral world is a much more supple and mobile world than could be imagined by the science of the ancients. Vaguely analogous to the metamorphoses of living creatures, there occurs in the most solid rocks, as we now know, perpetual transformation of a mineral species.
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We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me - I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
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