Lewis Thomas Quotes

The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th century science has been the discovery of human ignorance.

We are built to make mistakes, coded for error.

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.

Most things get better by themselves. Most things, in fact, are better by morning.

Cats are a standing rebuke to behavioral scientists wanting to know how the minds of animals work. The mind of a cat is an unscrutable mystery.

It is not so bad being ignorant if you are totally ignorant; the hard thing is knowing in some detail the reality of ignorance.

Cats – a standing rebuke to behavioural scientists . . . least human of all creatures.

We spend our time sending messages to each other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with our lives.

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 of plastic flowers.

We have yet to learn how to retain our humaneness when assembled in masses.

Any species capable of producing, at this earliest, juvenile stage of its development… the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, cannot be all bad.

If we are to be destroyed we will do it ourselves by warfare with thermonuclear weaponry.