“ As evolutionary time is measured, we have only just turned up and have hardly had time to catch breath, still marveling at our thumbs, still learning to use the brand-new gift of language. Being so yo… Lewis Thomas
“ The greatest single achievement of nature to date was surely the invention of the molecule DNA. Lewis Thomas
“ Doctors, dressed up in one professional costume or another, have been in busy practice since the earliest records of every culture on earth. It is hard to think of a more dependable or enduring occupa… Lewis Thomas
“ Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one's own genes in the generations to follow. Lewis Thomas
“ 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… Lewis Thomas
“ The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most of all, we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability… 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 tod… Lewis Thomas
“ The great secret of doctors, known only to their wives, but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves most things, in fact, are better in the morning. Lewis Thomas
“ It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be enchanted by the act of learning all the way. Lewis Thomas
“ 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 informat… Lewis Thomas
“ The dilemma of modern medicine, and the underlying central flaw in medical education and, most of all, in the training of interns, is the irresistible drive to do something, anything. It is expected b… Lewis Thomas
“ Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that the mere fact of our existence should keep us all in a state of contented dazzlement. Lewis Thomas
“ It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning… Lewis Thomas
“ The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth… Lewis Thomas
“ Cats - a standing rebuke to behavioural scientists . . . least human of all creatures. Lewis Thomas
“ However, I have a stronger hunch that the greatest part of the important biomedical research waiting to be done is in the class of basic science. There is an abundance of interesting fact relating to… Lewis Thomas
“ We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth's creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit… Lewis Thomas
“ Worrying is the most natural and spontaneous of all human functions. It is time to acknowledge this perhaps even to learn to do it better. Lewis Thomas
“ A multitude of bees can tell the time of day, calculate the geometry of the sun's position, argue about the best location for the next swarm. Bees do a lot of close observing of other bees maybe they… Lewis Thomas
“ It is not a simple thing to decide where we fit, for at one time or another in our lives we manage to organize in every imaginable social arrangement...We have names to label each as self, and we beli… Lewis Thomas
