E. O. Wilson, whose full name is Edward Osborne Wilson, is an American biologist, researcher, and author. He is considered one of the world's leading experts on ants and has made significant contributions to the study of biodiversity.
You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.
Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.
If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not productive.
The education of women is the best way to save the environment.
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
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?
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.
A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.
Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength.
Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.
When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.