Undulatory Extinction Quotes

The accelerator is stuck and humanity is driving at full speed into the brick wall of extinction. ~ Steven Magee

We live in perilous times and at crossroads. On the one hand, we risk our extinction and that of our planet because of the devastating combination of ancient tribal habits and modern technologies that have the ability to obliterate every living being on the planet several times over. On the other hand, we also possess a nervous system through which the universe is becoming self-aware. More than ever, we have the means and insight to create a brave new world in which our current stage of survival of the fittest can evolve to one of survival of the wisest. The road we choose will determine our future. ~ Deepak Chopra

If then this tendency toward collectivization is a mutation there is no reason to suppose it is for the better. It is a rule in paleontology that ornamentation and complication precede extinction. And our mutation, of which the assembly line, the collective farm, the mechanized army, and the mass production of food are evidences or even symptoms, might well correspond to the thickening armor of the great reptiles - a tendency that can end only in extinction. ~ John Steinbeck

Under the guise of helping the sick, oppressed and hopeless, psychiatry is paving the way for authoritarian governments to suppress a whole society furthermore, with drugs and obscene practices that promote, not only hypnotic suggestions, but also highly suggestible individuals which, otherwise, would oppose a whole repressive system that threatens both their existence and the existence of future generations on Earth. And so, one can very well say that, psychiatry, aided by pharmaceutical corporations and power-driven governments, or merely governments fearful of their own people and the extinction of immoral politics, will contribute vastly to the extermination and full extinction of the human race. ~ Robin Sacredfire

It is a cosmic joke. Preoccupation with survival has set the stage for extinction. ~ John Steinbeck

One in eight plant species face extinction. ~ David Attenborough

But when we are following the light, even its extinction is a guide. ~ George MacDonald

Education without execution is extinction ~ Bo Sanchez

The thing we can learn from the extinction of dinosaurs is that a random event in the universe can wipe us out. It does not matter whether we do the right things or not. The universe is neither benevolent nor hostile. It is thoroughly indifferent. ~ Rajesh`

Nirvana is the utter extinction of all that is base in us, all that is vicious in us. Nirvana is not like the black, dead peace of the grave, but the living peace, the living happiness of a soul which is conscious of itself and conscious of having found its own abode in the heart of the Eternal. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Daniel Elkins. The man credited with hunting vampires to extinction, killed by vampires. Ironic way to go, but he wouldn't have it any other way. He told me on more than one occasion that he knew he'd go down bloody, and he was right. ~ David Reed

That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins - all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. ~ Bertrand Russell

Your shield must surpass your weaponry. ~ Toba Beta

The economists have us well along the way of the greatest mass extinction event in human history. ~ Steven Magee

The tragedy of power like mine is that there is no way down. There can only be extinction. Dust to dust; rags to rags; fear to fear. ~ V.S. Naipaul

His interest, after all, was not in the origin of species but in their demise. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert

Something bad happened on both Mars with its dried-up watercourses and Venus with its runaway greenhouse effect. Could something bad happen on Earth too? Our species currently turns row upon row of environmental knobs, without much regard to long-term consequences. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Thou art My light and My light shall never be extinguished; why dost thou dread extinction? Thou art My glory and My glory shall fadeth not; thou art My robe and My robe shall never be outworn. ~ Bahaullah

Mommy, Daddy, what are they doing?" a little girl asked, watching the bonobos play. Her forehead and palms were pressed against the glass, as if she thought she could break on through to the other side and join them if only she pushed hard enough.

"Looks like they need private time!" her father barked back, steering the girl away from the window as her mother brightly proposed, "Let's go see the hippos!"

Not everybody is quite ready for the Bonobo Way, and far be it from me to push it on anyone, especially some stressed-out parents at the zoo.

On the other hand, maybe they're more ready than they realize. Ready or not, its moment has come. The time is now for human beings to step up to the plate and protect our kissing cousins from extinction, as well as learn as much as we can from them about our noblest and kinkiest characteristics, our capacity for peace (even world peace) through pleasure, more satisfying relationships, better communication, hotter sex and deeper love. ~ Susan Block

Today, due to the massive Chinese population transfer, the nation of Tibet truly faces the threat of extinction, along with its unique cultural heritage of Buddhist spirituality. ~ Dalai Lama

Indeed, analyst Robert Bak calls orgasm "the perfect promise between love and death," the means by which we repatriate separation of mother and child through the momentary extinction of the self. It is true that few of us consciously climb into a lover's bed in the hope of finding our mommy between the sheets. But the sexual loss of our separateness (which may scare people so badly they cannot have orgasm) brings us pleasure, in part, because it unconsciously repeats our first connection. ~ Judith Viorst

All life pulsates in time to the Earth and our artificial fields cause abnormal reactions in all organisms... Increasing electropollution could set in motion irreversible changes leading to our extinction. ~ Robert O. Becker

We must allow ourselves to think, we must dare to think, even though we fail. It is in the nature of things that we always fail, because we suddenly find it impossible to order our thoughts, because the process of thinking requires us to consider every thought there is, every possible thought. Fundamentally we have always failed, like all the others, whoever they were, even the greatest minds. At some point, they suddenly failed and their system collapsed, as is proved by their writings, which we admire because they venture farthest into failure. To think is to fail, I thought. ~ Thomas Bernhard

Genocide, the physical extinction of a people, is universally condemned, but ethnocide, the destruction of people's way of life, is not only not condemned, it's universally celebrated as part of a development strategy. ~ Wade Davis

Freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. We have to fight for it and protect it and then hand it to them, so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free. ~ Ronald Reagan

Just one Bush justice on the court means left-wingers might have to start actually winning votes for their wacky ideas; a prescription for liberal extinction. ~ Jay Severin

Racism, pollution and the rest of it are themselves very close to extinction. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Whereas a novice makes moves until he gets checkmated (proof), a Grand Master realizes 20 moves in advance that it's futile to continue playing (conceptualizing). ~ Bill Gaede

To follow art for the sake of being a great man, and therefore to cast about continually for some means of achieving position or attracting admiration, is the surest way of ending in total extinction. ~ John Ruskin

And we really should be considering the moral implications of what we're doing. What kind of a species are we that we treat the rest of life so cheaply? There are those who think that's the destiny of Earth: We arrived, we're humanizing the Earth, and it will be the destiny of Earth for us to wipe humans out and most of the rest of biodiversity. But I think the great majority of thoughtful people consider that a morally wrong position to take, and a very dangerous one. ~ Edward O. Wilson

When man disappears, the lights go out in our dreams and turn to darkness. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

Accidental nuclear war between two superpowers may or may not happen in my lifetime, but if it does, it will obviously change everything. The climate change we're currently worrying about pales in comparison with nuclear winter, where a global dust cloud blocks sunlight for years, much like when an asteroid or supervolcano caused a mass extinction in the past. The 2008 economic turmoil was of course nothing compared to the resulting global crop failures, infrastructure collapse and mass starvation, with survivors succumbing to hungry armed gangs systematically pillaging from house to house. Do I expect to see this in my lifetime? I'd give it about 30%, putting it roughly on par with my getting cancer. Yet we devote way less attention and resources to reducing the risk of nuclear disaster than we do for cancer. And whereas humanity as a whole survives even if 30% get cancer, it's less obvious to what extent our civilization would survive a nuclear Armageddon. There are concrete and straightforward steps that can be taken to slash this risk, as spelled out in numerous reports by scientific organizations, but these never become major election issues and tend to get largely ignored. ~ Max Tegmark