Quotes of: Natural-history Keyword

Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

The true socialist utopia turns out to be a field of F-1 hybrid plants.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Reversing the historical trajectory of human eating, for this meal the forest would be feeding us again.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Being right keeps you in place. Being wrong forces you to explore.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

Natural selection is a blind and undirected consequence of the interaction between variation and the environment. Natural selection exists only in the continuous present of the natural world: it has no memory of its previous actions, no plans for the...

In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life

So this is what commodity corn can do to a cow: industrialize the miracle of nature that is a ruminant, taking this sunlight- and prairie grass-powered organism and turning it into the last thing we need: another fossil fuel machine. This one, howeve...

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Where in the Bible are we told in one verse not to do a thing and in the next to do it? ‘Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.’ Prov. xxvi. 4. ‘Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his ow...

Queer Questions and Ready Replies: A Collection of Four Hundred Questions in History, Geography, Biography, Mythology, Philosophy, Natural History, Sc

For is there any practice less selfish, any labor less alienated, any time less wasted, than preparing something delicious and nourishing for people you love?

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

Thenceforth they thought that, rationally concluded, doubt could become an instrument of knowledge.

The Historian's Craft: Reflections on the Nature and Uses of History and the Techniques and Methods of Those Who Write It.

If the nature of the world is revealed to man through religion, then gardens, as places for contemplation, should symbolise the perfection of nature.

British Gardens: History, Philosophy and Design

A growing body of research suggests that many of the health problems associated with eating beef are really problems with corn-fed beef.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Silicon-based life may be impossible for one other reason: silicon bonds readily dissolve in water.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

This is not the wisdom of the crowd, but the wisdom of someone in the crowd. It’s not that the network itself is smart; it’s that the individuals get smarter because they’re connected to the network.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

I was brought up in a family which valued natural history. Both my parents knew the names of all the British wildflowers, so as we went walking the country, I was constantly being exposed to a natural history sort of knowledge.

Richard Dawkins

History is a record of human nature in action.

James Carlos Blake

… for it is very probable, that the motion of gravity worketh weakly, both far from the earth, and also within the earth: the former because the appetite of union of dense bodies with the earth, in respect of the distance, is more dull: the latter,...

Sylva Sylvarum: Or a Natural History in Ten Centuries

Symbolic of life, hair bolts from our head[s]. Like the earth, it can be harvested, but it will rise again. We can change its color and texture when the mood strikes us, but in time it will return to its original form, just as Nature will in time tur...

A Natural History of the Senses

More grass means less forest; more forest less grass. But either-or is a construction more deeply woven into our culture than into nature, where even antagonists depend on one another and the liveliest places are the edges, the in-betweens or both-an...

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

For me, life offers so many complexly appealing moments that two beautiful objects may be equally beautiful for different reasons and at different times. How can one choose?

A Natural History of the Senses

It is very much in the interest of the food industry to exacerbate our anxieties about what to eat, the better to then assuage them with new products.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals