Top 180 E. O. Wilson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”

— E. O. Wilson

2. “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

— E. O. Wilson

Featured in: Quotes About Humanity

3. “You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand.”

— E. O. Wilson

4. “We’ve got paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technologies.”

— E. O. Wilson

5. “You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.”

— E. O. Wilson

Featured in: Believe in Yourself Quotes, Never Give Up Quotes, Encouraging Quotes for Students

6. “Biodiversity is the totality of all inherited variation in the life forms of Earth, of which we are one species. We study and save it to our great benefit. We ignore and degrade it to our great peril.”

— E. O. Wilson

7. “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.”

— E. O. Wilson

8. “Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.”

— E. O. Wilson

9. “Biophilia, if it exists, and I believe it exists, is the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms.”

— E. O. Wilson

10. “Look closely at nature. Every species is a masterpiece, exquisitely adapted to the particular environment in which it has survived. Who are we to destroy or even diminish biodiversity?”

— E. O. Wilson

11. “Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species.”

— E. O. Wilson

12. “I turned to the teeming small creatures that can be held between the thumb and forefinger: the little things that compose the foundation of our ecosystems, the little things, as I like to say, who run the world.”

— E. O. Wilson

13. “We exist in a bizarre combination of Stone Age emotions, medieval beliefs, and god-like technology.”

— E. O. Wilson

14. “Biophilia: the innate pleasure from living abundance and diversity as manifested by the human impulse to imitate Nature with gardens.”

— E. O. Wilson

15. “We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.”

— E. O. Wilson

16. “One planet, one experiment.”

— E. O. Wilson

17. “Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.”

— E. O. Wilson

18. “We are not afraid of predators, we’re transfixed by them, prone to weave stories and fables and chatter endlessly about them, because fascination creates preparedness, and preparedness, survival. In a deeply tribal way, we love our monsters...”

— E. O. Wilson

19. “There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us.”

— E. O. Wilson

20. “Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms – if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.”

— E. O. Wilson

21. “Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.”

— E. O. Wilson

22. “Overall, the human brain is the most complex object known in the universe – known, that is, to itself.”

— E. O. Wilson

23. “From the freedom to explore comes the joy of learning. From knowledge acquired by personal initiative arises the desire for more knowledge. And from mastery of the novel and beautiful world awaiting every child comes self-confidence.”

— E. O. Wilson

24. “The education of women is the best way to save the environment.”

— E. O. Wilson

25. “The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”

— E. O. Wilson

26. “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

— E. O. Wilson

27. “To be anthropocentric is to remain unaware of the limits of human nature, the significance of biological processes underlying human behavior, and the deeper meaning of long-term genetic evolution.”

— E. O. Wilson

28. “People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.”

— E. O. Wilson

29. “The search for knowledge is in our genes. It was put there by our distant ancestors who spread across the world, and it’s never going to be quenched.”

— E. O. Wilson

30. “Human nature is deeper and broader than the artificial contrivance of any existing culture.”

— E. O. Wilson

31. “The world depends on fungi, because they are major players in the cycling of materials and energy around the world.”

— E. O. Wilson

32. “True character arises from a deeper well than religion.”

— E. O. Wilson

33. “To search for unasked questions, plus questions to put to already acquired but unsought answers, it is vital to give full play to the imagination. That is the way to create truly original science.”

— E. O. Wilson

34. “The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings.”

— E. O. Wilson

35. “People must belong to a tribe; they yearn to have a purpose larger than themselves. We are obligated by the deepest drives of the human spirit to make ourselves more than animated dust, and we must have a story to tell about where we came from, and why we are here.”

— E. O. Wilson

36. “If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.”

— E. O. Wilson

37. “If religion and science could be united on the common ground of biological conservation, the problem would be soon solved. If there is any moral precept shared by people of all beliefs, it is that we owe ourselves and future generations a beautiful, rich, and healthful environment.”

— E. O. Wilson

38. “There doesn’t seem to be any other way of creating the next green revolution without GMOs.”

— E. O. Wilson

39. “All three of the Abrahamic religions were born and nurtured in arid, disturbed environments.”

— E. O. Wilson

40. “The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.”

— E. O. Wilson

41. “Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they’ve had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years.”

— E. O. Wilson

42. “The laws of biology are written in the language of diversity.”

— E. O. Wilson

43. “In the attempt to make scientific discoveries, every problem is an opportunity – and the more difficult the problem, the greater will be the importance of its solution.”

— E. O. Wilson

44. “An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity.”

— E. O. Wilson

45. “Known as the biosphere to scientists and as the creation to theologians, all of life together consists of a membrane around earth so thin that it cannot be seen edgewise from a satellite yet so prodigiously diverse that only a tiny fraction of species have been discovered and named.”

— E. O. Wilson

46. “The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible.”

— E. O. Wilson

47. “I will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished, and never to be surrendered without a struggle.”

— E. O. Wilson

48. “There is no better high than discovery.”

— E. O. Wilson

49. “The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can.”

— E. O. Wilson

50. “Exclusion makes us suffer, inclusion makes us thrive.”

— E. O. Wilson