"We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth's creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still."
-Lewis Thomas
FutureView Quote
"There's really no such thing as the agony of dying. I'm quite sure that pain is shut off at the moment of death. You see, something happens when the body knows it's about to go. Peptide hormones are released by cells in the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. Endorphins. They attach themselves to the cells responsible for feeling pain.“
-Lewis Thomas
posted in Death
Other Quotes by Lewis Thomas
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"Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television."
-Lewis Thomas
WarView Quote
"I won't compare ants and people, but ants give us a useful model of how single members of a community can become so organized that they end up resembling, in effect, one big collective brain. Our own exploding population and communication technology are leading us that way."
-Lewis Thomas
TechnologyView Quote
"We're as clever as we think we are, but we'll be a lot cleverer when we learn to use not just one brain but to pool huge numbers of brains. We're at a level technologically where we can share information and think collectively about our problems. We do it in science all the time - there's no reason why we can't do it in other endeavors."
-Lewis Thomas
ScienceView Quote
"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."
-Lewis Thomas
ScienceView Quote
"Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one's own genes in the generations to follow."
-Lewis Thomas
CoolView Quote
Same Category
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"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
-J. K. Rowling
DeathView Quote
"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings."
-Anais Nin
DeathView Quote
"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
-Mark Twain
DeathView Quote
"Death ends a life, not a relationship."
-Jack Lemon
DeathView Quote
"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."
-Robert Fulghum
DeathView Quote
"It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death."
-Thomas Mann
DeathView Quote