Elizabeth Kolbert Quotes
One of the many unintended consequences of the Anthropocene has been the pruning of our own family tree. Having cut down our sister species—the Neanderthals and the Denisovans—many generations ago, we’re now working on our first and second cousins. By the time we’re done, it’s quite possible that there will be among the great apes not a single representative left, except, that is, for us.
Quotes to Explore
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I am a worrier. I worry about the state of our country, of the world, of our species. Every day seems to deliver a new nail to hammer into our collective coffin.
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I feel like science and art are cousins.
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All my cousins steal things. They're just a bunch of thieves. My whole family is like that. You put something down for a second, and they steal it. You never see it again.
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We are a naturally hierarchical species.
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Even though the album is an endangered species, can we try and make a coherent and good one, even if it's like making a horse and cart at a Nascar conference?
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I had a wonderful family including my aunts, uncles and cousins but they've all gone to heaven.
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Why is it that no other species but man gets bored? Under the circumstances in which a man gets bored, a dog goes to sleep.
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When I am at a dinner table, I love to ask everybody, 'How long do you think our species might last?' I've read that the average age of a species, of any species, is about two million years. Is it possible we can have an average life span as a species? And do you picture us two million years more or a million and a half years, or 5,000?
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We think only through the medium of words. Languages are true analytical methods. Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every species of expression, in the most simple, most exact, and best manner possible, is at the same time a language and an analytical method. The art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged.
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It's very interesting to think about the distinction with mind, which I just made in very general terms, but it can be made more profound when we think that there are many species, many creatures on earth that are very likely to have a mind, but are very unlikely to have a consciousness in the sense that you and I have.
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The most effective way to save endangered species is to protect the places they need to live.
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There is today a frightful disappearance of living species, be they plants or animals. And it's clear that the density of human beings has become so great, if I can say so, that they have begun to poison themselves. And the world in which I am finishing my existence is no longer a world that I like.
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Cousins are part of your life so stick with cuz not friends.
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I made efforts to swallow tears and to protect the species of the Japanese nation.
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Meals, in the sense in which we understand this word, began with the second age of the human species.
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An important species of pleasure, and therewith the source of morality, arises out of habit.
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Abuse is an indirect species of homage.
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The living is a species of the dead; and not a very attractive one.
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For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice.
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I can barely turn on my computer!
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Opportunity presents itself sometimes in unusual situations. What you think is the worst thing turns out to be a good thing. Different circumstances challenge people to do things they didn't know they could do, and in those times when the outlook appears the worst, we find new reasons for optimism.
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We ourselves introduce that order and regularity in the appearance which we entitle "nature". We could never find them in appearances had we not ourselves, by the nature of our own mind, originally set them there.
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There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it.
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One of the many unintended consequences of the Anthropocene has been the pruning of our own family tree. Having cut down our sister species—the Neanderthals and the Denisovans—many generations ago, we’re now working on our first and second cousins. By the time we’re done, it’s quite possible that there will be among the great apes not a single representative left, except, that is, for us.
