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

Because the living environment is what really sustains us.

E. O. Wilson

'The Creation' presents an argument for saving biological diversity on Earth. Most of the book is for as broad an audience as possible.

E. O. Wilson

All three of the Abrahamic religions were born and nurtured in arid, disturbed environments.

E. O. Wilson

People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.

E. O. Wilson

There doesn't seem to be any other way of creating the next green revolution without GMOs.

E. O. Wilson

What's been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.

E. O. Wilson

One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period.

E. O. Wilson

I had reached a point in my career in which I was ready to try something new in my writing, and the idea of a novel has always been in the back of my mind.

E. O. Wilson

It's like having astronomy without knowing where the stars are.

E. O. Wilson

America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost.

E. O. Wilson

Of course, there is no reconciliation between the theory of evolution by natural selection and the traditional religious view of the origin of the human mind.

E. O. Wilson

I grew up as a Southern Baptist with strict adherence to the Bible, which I read as a youngster.

E. O. Wilson

In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.

E. O. Wilson

We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.

E. O. Wilson

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.

E. O. Wilson

Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.

E. O. Wilson

In 2010, my two Harvard mathematician colleagues and I dismantled kin-selection theory, which was the reigning theory of the origin of altruism at the time.

E. O. Wilson

In some ways, I had a traditional 'old South' upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an inoculum of the military ethic that is still with me today: honor, duty, loyalty.

E. O. Wilson

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?

E. O. Wilson

When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.

E. O. Wilson

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.

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