"The idea that we were designed by our past was the principal insight of Charles Darwin. He was the first to realize that you can abandon divine creation of species without abandoning the argument from design."

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.”

“Evolving is not a goal but a means to solving a problem.”

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

Resonant Thoughts

"As a boundary science, econometrics is younger than the adjacent regions, which fact likewise has advantages and disadvantages. As a disadvantage, the lack of an established doctrine, and also the lac…"

— Jan Tinbergen

Economics1903–1994

#wisdom

"Would we have manga without Tezuka? According to Gravett, the question "is rather like asking if we would have French-language comics without Herge, or American comic books without Jack Kirby. Tezuka …"

— Osamu Tezuka

Art1928–1989

#death

"He recognized her despite the uproar, through his tears of unrepeatable sorrow at dying without her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more…"

— Gabriel García Márquez

Literature1927–2014

#love

"Our habit of constantly and zealously answering to any rabble has already done us a lot of harm and will do much more. … We do not have to apologize for anything. We are a people as all other peoples;…"

— Ze'ev Jabotinsky

Literature1880–1940

#justice