Quotes by E. O. Wilson

About E. O. Wilson:

Edward Osborne is an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity, island biogeography), theorist (consilience, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading expert.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.

E. O. Wilson

The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.

E. O. Wilson

What we need is an electronic encyclopedia of life, with one page for each species. On each page is given everything known about that species.

E. O. Wilson

So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the...

E. O. Wilson

I doubt that most people with short-term thinking love the natural world enough to save it.

E. O. Wilson

I was a senior in high school when I decided I wanted to work on ants as a career. I just fell in love with them, and have never regretted it.

E. O. Wilson

Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass.

E. O. Wilson

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

E. O. Wilson

Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.

E. O. Wilson

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

E. O. Wilson

But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world.

E. O. Wilson

An individual ant, even though it has a brain about a millionth of a size of a human being's, can learn a maze; the kind we use is a simple rat maze in a laboratory. They can learn it about one-half as fast as a rat.

E. O. Wilson

Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.

E. O. Wilson

Companies that are willing to share, to withhold in order to further the growth of the company, willing to try to get a better atmosphere through a demonstration of democratic principles, fairness and cooperation, a better product, those will win in ...

E. O. Wilson

Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.

E. O. Wilson

We don't need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth's surface remaining in tropical rain forests, with most of the animal and plant species living there.

E. O. Wilson

When you get into the whole field of exploring, probably 90 percent of the kinds of organisms, plants, animals and especially microorganisms and tiny invertebrate animals are unknown. Then you realize that we live on a relatively unexplored plan.

E. O. Wilson

Jehovah had nothing to say to Moses and the others about the care of the planet. He had plenty to say about tribal loyalty and conquest.

E. O. Wilson

I'm very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness, a deep set obligation to others, and the virtues of charity, tolerance and generosity that we associate with traditional Christian teaching.

E. O. Wilson

The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.

E. O. Wilson

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

E. O. Wilson

Author Bio

  • NameE. O. Wilson
  • DescriptionAmerican biologist
  • AliasesE. O. Wilson; Edward Osborne Wilson
  • BornJune 10, 1929
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionEntomologist; Sociobiologist; Novelist; Ethologist; Autobiographer; Naturalist; Evolutionary Biologist; Science Writer
  • WorksBiophilia Hypothesis
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Pulitzer Prize For General Non-Fiction; Pulitzer Prize For General Non-Fiction; Humanist Of The Year; William Procter Prize For Scientific Achievement; Tyler Prize For Environmental Achievement; Crafoord Prize