"Evolving is not a goal but a means to solving a problem."

Matt Ridley Economics See all quotes by Matt Ridley →

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“As every bird-watcher knows, the beauty of a bird's song is inversely correlated with the colourfulness of its plumage.”

“...compare mankind with other animals that share our highly social habits: with colonial birds, monkeys and dolphins. As we shall see, the lesson they teach is that we are designed for a system of monogamy plagued by adultery.”

“Life is a Sisyphean race, run ever faster towards a finishing line that is merely the start of the next race.”

“People are attracted to people of high reproductive and genetic potential -the healthy, the fit and the powerful. The consequences of this fact, which goes under the name of sexual selection, are bizarre in the extreme.”

“In behavior, as in appearance, every human individual is unique.”

“Wealth and power are means to women; women are means to genetic eternity.”

Resonant Thoughts

"This is, by the way, the great— one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration. The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we're in dan…"

— Newt Gingrich

Politics1943

#success

"What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, "Get rid of the possessions of the mind." Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's lik…"

— John Lennon

Music1768–1846

#success

"Rhetoric is a dangerous art. It is the manipulation of the difference, one might say the distance, between truth and image And in our times, that distance has become the means by which power is exerci…"

— Nick Drake (poet)

Literature1948–1974

#power

"What is meant by saying that my choice of which way to walk home after the lecture is ambiguous and matter of chance?...It means that both Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street are called but only one, an…"

— William James

Psychology1842–1910

#family