#extinction

Without death there is little innovation. Extinction - death of a species - is part and parcel of evolutionary change. In the absence of this kind of extinction new developments would not prosper. In our own history, periods when ideas have been perpetuated by dogma, preventing the replacement of old by new ideas, have also been times of stultifying stagnation. The Dark Ages in western society were the most static, least innovative of times. So the fact that trilobites were replaced by batches of successive species through their long history was a testimony to their evolutionary vigour. ↗

— Richard Fortey

#death #evolution #extinction #innovation #trilobites

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#extinction #science #survival #experience

Experience as well as common sense indicated that the most reliable method of avoiding self-extinction was not to equip oneself with the means to accomplish it in the first place. ↗

— Iain Banks

#experience

Today, the rich are the haves and the poor are the have-nots. Tomorrow, the rich will be the have-food and the poor will be the have-not food. ↗

— Bill Gaede

#end-of-man #extinction #globalization #last-generation #mass-extinction

Don’t believe what you hear about those penguins. A species of lazy waddlers. Their extinction is immanent. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#funny #penguins #funny

Long after the traces of the human animal have disappeared, many of the species it is bent on destroying will still be around, along with others that have yet to spring up. The Earth will forget mankind. The play of life will go on. ↗

— John Gray

#extinction #humans #the-coast-opposite-of-humanity #unsaved #life

For youth, sexual love is whim; for the aged, luxury. ↗

— Bill Gaede

#extinction #love #relations #age

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

#extinction #failure #thought #nature

I gradually realized that I was seeing another example of creative ebb, another step by another art on the road that may indeed end in extinction. ↗

— Stephen King

#extinction #writer-s-block #writing #writing-process #art

This isn't about keeping mountains looking pretty. Ending mountaintop removal is about keeping humanity alive. ↗

— Rivera Sun

#climate-change #earth #ecology #extinction #mountains