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Top 30 Merlin Sheldrake Quotes (2025 Update)

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “There are more bacteria in your gut than stars in our galaxy.”

1. “There are more bacteria in your gut than stars in our galaxy.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “A slime-mold enthusiast told me about a test he had performed. He frequently got lost in IKEA stores and would spend many minutes trying to find the exit. He decided to challenge his slime molds with the same problem and built a maze based on the floor plan of his local IKEA. Sure enough, without any signs or staff to direct them, the slime molds soon found the shortest path to the exit. “You see,” he said with a laugh, “they’re cleverer than me.”

2. “A slime-mold enthusiast told me about a test he had performed. He frequently got lost in IKEA stores and would spend many minutes trying to find the exit. He decided to challenge his slime molds with the same problem and built a maze based on the floor plan of his local IKEA. Sure enough, without any signs or staff to direct them, the slime molds soon found the shortest path to the exit. “You see,” he said with a laugh, “they’re cleverer than me.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “A mycelial network is a map of a fungus’s recent history and is a helpful reminder that all life-forms are in fact processes not things. The “you” of five years ago was made from different stuff than the “you” of today. Nature is an event that never stops. As William Bateson, who coined the word genetics, observed, “We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really systems through which matter is continually passing.”

3. “A mycelial network is a map of a fungus’s recent history and is a helpful reminder that all life-forms are in fact processes not things. The “you” of five years ago was made from different stuff than the “you” of today. Nature is an event that never stops. As William Bateson, who coined the word genetics, observed, “We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really systems through which matter is continually passing.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Our perceptions work in large part by expectation. It takes less cognitive effort to make sense of the world using preconceived images updated with a small amount of new sensory information than to constantly form entirely new perceptions from scratch.”

4. “Our perceptions work in large part by expectation. It takes less cognitive effort to make sense of the world using preconceived images updated with a small amount of new sensory information than to constantly form entirely new perceptions from scratch.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “The difference between animals and fungi is simple: Animals put food in their bodies, whereas fungi put their bodies in the food.”

5. “The difference between animals and fungi is simple: Animals put food in their bodies, whereas fungi put their bodies in the food.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “The biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, observes that the indigenous Potawatomi language is rich in verb forms that attribute aliveness to the more-than-human world. The word for “hill,” for example, is a verb: to be a hill. Hills are always in the process of hilling, they are actively being hills.”

6. “The biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, observes that the indigenous Potawatomi language is rich in verb forms that attribute aliveness to the more-than-human world. The word for “hill,” for example, is a verb: to be a hill. Hills are always in the process of hilling, they are actively being hills.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “I have tried to find ways to enjoy the ambiguities that fungi present, but it’s not always easy to be comfortable in the space created by open questions. Agoraphobia can set in. It’s tempting to hide in small rooms built from quick answers. I have done my best to hold back. page 14.”

7. “I have tried to find ways to enjoy the ambiguities that fungi present, but it’s not always easy to be comfortable in the space created by open questions. Agoraphobia can set in. It’s tempting to hide in small rooms built from quick answers. I have done my best to hold back. page 14.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Life is nested biomes all the way down.”

8. “Life is nested biomes all the way down.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Japanese researchers released slime molds into petri dishes modeled on the Greater Tokyo area. Oat flakes marked major urban hubs and bright lights represented obstacles such as mountains – slime molds don’t like light. After a day, the slime mold had found the most efficient route between the oats, emanating into a network almost identical to Tokyo’s existing rail network.”

9. “Japanese researchers released slime molds into petri dishes modeled on the Greater Tokyo area. Oat flakes marked major urban hubs and bright lights represented obstacles such as mountains – slime molds don’t like light. After a day, the slime mold had found the most efficient route between the oats, emanating into a network almost identical to Tokyo’s existing rail network.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Without this fungal web my tree would not exist. Without similar fungal webs no plant would exist anywhere. All life on land, including my own, depended on these networks.”

10. “Without this fungal web my tree would not exist. Without similar fungal webs no plant would exist anywhere. All life on land, including my own, depended on these networks.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Anthropomorphism is usually thought of as an illusion that arises like a blister in soft human minds: untrained, undisciplined, unhardened. There are good reasons for this: when we humanise the world, we may prevent ourselves from understanding the lives of other organisms on their own terms. But are there things this stance might lead us to pass over – or forget to notice?”

11. “Anthropomorphism is usually thought of as an illusion that arises like a blister in soft human minds: untrained, undisciplined, unhardened. There are good reasons for this: when we humanise the world, we may prevent ourselves from understanding the lives of other organisms on their own terms. But are there things this stance might lead us to pass over – or forget to notice?”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Fungi, like plants, are decentralized organisms. There are no operational centers, no capital cities, no seats of government. Control is dispersed: Mycelial coordination takes place both everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. A fragment of mycelium can regenerate an entire network, meaning that a single mycelial individual – if you’re brave enough to use that word – is potentially immortal.”

12. “Fungi, like plants, are decentralized organisms. There are no operational centers, no capital cities, no seats of government. Control is dispersed: Mycelial coordination takes place both everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. A fragment of mycelium can regenerate an entire network, meaning that a single mycelial individual – if you’re brave enough to use that word – is potentially immortal.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “No matter where fungi grow, they must be able to insinuate themselves within their source of food. To do so, they use pressure. In cases where mycelium has to break through particularly tough barriers, as disease-causing fungi do when infecting plants, they develop special penetrative hyphae that can reach pressures of fifty to eighty atmospheres and exert enough force to penetrate the tough plastics Mylar and Kevlar.”

13. “No matter where fungi grow, they must be able to insinuate themselves within their source of food. To do so, they use pressure. In cases where mycelium has to break through particularly tough barriers, as disease-causing fungi do when infecting plants, they develop special penetrative hyphae that can reach pressures of fifty to eighty atmospheres and exert enough force to penetrate the tough plastics Mylar and Kevlar.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Flatworms are well-studied model organisms because of their ability to regenerate. If the head of a flatworm is cut off, it sprouts another head, brain and all. Flatworms can also be trained. The researchers wondered whether, if they trained a flatworm to remember features of its environment and then cut off its head, it would retain the memory when it has grown a new head and brain.”

14. “Flatworms are well-studied model organisms because of their ability to regenerate. If the head of a flatworm is cut off, it sprouts another head, brain and all. Flatworms can also be trained. The researchers wondered whether, if they trained a flatworm to remember features of its environment and then cut off its head, it would retain the memory when it has grown a new head and brain.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “LICHENS ENCRUST AS much as eight percent of the planet’s surface, an area larger than that covered by tropical rainforests.”

15. “LICHENS ENCRUST AS much as eight percent of the planet’s surface, an area larger than that covered by tropical rainforests.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “For Adamatzky, the point of fungal computers is not to replace silicon chips. Fungal reactions are too slow for that. Rather, he thinks humans could use mycelium growing in an ecosystem as a “large-scale environmental sensor.” Fungal networks, he reasons, are monitoring a large number of data streams as part of their everyday existence. If we could plug into mycelial networks and interpret the signals they use to process information, we could learn more about what was happening in an ecosystem.”

16. “For Adamatzky, the point of fungal computers is not to replace silicon chips. Fungal reactions are too slow for that. Rather, he thinks humans could use mycelium growing in an ecosystem as a “large-scale environmental sensor.” Fungal networks, he reasons, are monitoring a large number of data streams as part of their everyday existence. If we could plug into mycelial networks and interpret the signals they use to process information, we could learn more about what was happening in an ecosystem.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Our eyes can distinguish several million colors, our ears can distinguish half a million tones, but our noses can distinguish well over a trillion different odors.”

17. “Our eyes can distinguish several million colors, our ears can distinguish half a million tones, but our noses can distinguish well over a trillion different odors.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Science isn’t an exercise in cold-blooded rationality. Scientists are – and have always been – emotional, creative, intuitive, whole human beings, asking questions about a world that was never made to be catalogued and systematized.”

18. “Science isn’t an exercise in cold-blooded rationality. Scientists are – and have always been – emotional, creative, intuitive, whole human beings, asking questions about a world that was never made to be catalogued and systematized.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Fungi are equipped with different kinds of bodies. They don’t have noses or brains. Instead, their entire surface behaves like an olfactory epithelium. A mycelial network is one large chemically sensitive membrane: A molecule can bind to a receptor anywhere on its surface and trigger a signaling cascade that alters fungal behavior.”

19. “Fungi are equipped with different kinds of bodies. They don’t have noses or brains. Instead, their entire surface behaves like an olfactory epithelium. A mycelial network is one large chemically sensitive membrane: A molecule can bind to a receptor anywhere on its surface and trigger a signaling cascade that alters fungal behavior.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Sixty percent of the enzymes used in industry are generated by fungi, and fifteen percent of all vaccines are produced by engineered strains of yeast.”

20. “Sixty percent of the enzymes used in industry are generated by fungi, and fifteen percent of all vaccines are produced by engineered strains of yeast.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Objects within a few millimeters cause the fruiting body of Phycomyces to bend away without ever making contact. Regardless of the object – opaque or transparent, smooth or rough – Phycomyces starts to bend away after about two minutes. Electrostatic fields, humidity, mechanical cues, and temperature have all been ruled out. Some hypothesize that Phycomyces uses a volatile chemical signal that deflects around the obstacle with tiny air currents, but this is far from proven.”

21. “Objects within a few millimeters cause the fruiting body of Phycomyces to bend away without ever making contact. Regardless of the object – opaque or transparent, smooth or rough – Phycomyces starts to bend away after about two minutes. Electrostatic fields, humidity, mechanical cues, and temperature have all been ruled out. Some hypothesize that Phycomyces uses a volatile chemical signal that deflects around the obstacle with tiny air currents, but this is far from proven.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Drugs are normally understood to work through a pharmacological circuit that bypasses the conscious mind entirely: A drug affects a receptor, which triggers a change in symptoms. By contrast, psilocybin – like LSD and other psychedelics – appears to act on symptoms of mental illness via the mind.”

22. “Drugs are normally understood to work through a pharmacological circuit that bypasses the conscious mind entirely: A drug affects a receptor, which triggers a change in symptoms. By contrast, psilocybin – like LSD and other psychedelics – appears to act on symptoms of mental illness via the mind.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “When Olsson inserted the microelectrodes into Armillaria’s hyphal strands, he detected regular action potential–like impulses, firing at a rate very close to that of animals’ sensory neurons – around four impulses per second, which traveled along hyphae at a speed of at least half a millimeter per second, some ten times faster than the fastest rate of fluid flow measured in a fungal hypha.”

23. “When Olsson inserted the microelectrodes into Armillaria’s hyphal strands, he detected regular action potential–like impulses, firing at a rate very close to that of animals’ sensory neurons – around four impulses per second, which traveled along hyphae at a speed of at least half a millimeter per second, some ten times faster than the fastest rate of fluid flow measured in a fungal hypha.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Some organisms – like most animals – find food in the world and put it inside their bodies, where it is digested and absorbed. Fungi have a different strategy. They digest the world where it is and then absorb it into their bodies.”

24. “Some organisms – like most animals – find food in the world and put it inside their bodies, where it is digested and absorbed. Fungi have a different strategy. They digest the world where it is and then absorb it into their bodies.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “One study estimated that if a hypha was as wide as a human hand, it would be able to lift an eight-ton school bus.”

25. “One study estimated that if a hypha was as wide as a human hand, it would be able to lift an eight-ton school bus.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “The authors of a seminal paper on the symbiotic view of life take a clear stance on this point. “There have never been individuals,” they declare. “We are all lichens.”

26. “The authors of a seminal paper on the symbiotic view of life take a clear stance on this point. “There have never been individuals,” they declare. “We are all lichens.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Biology – the study of living organisms – had transformed into ecology – the study of the relationships between living organisms.”

27. “Biology – the study of living organisms – had transformed into ecology – the study of the relationships between living organisms.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “We are all lichens.”

28. “We are all lichens.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “A growing number of studies have made a link between animal behavior and the trillions of bacteria and fungi that live in their guts, many of which produce chemicals that influence animal nervous systems. The interaction between gut microbes and brains – the “microbiome-gut-brain axis” – is far-reaching enough to have birthed a new field: neuromicrobiology.”

29. “A growing number of studies have made a link between animal behavior and the trillions of bacteria and fungi that live in their guts, many of which produce chemicals that influence animal nervous systems. The interaction between gut microbes and brains – the “microbiome-gut-brain axis” – is far-reaching enough to have birthed a new field: neuromicrobiology.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “Cords and rhizomorphs are a good reminder that mycelial networks are transport networks. Boddy’s mycelial road map is another good illustration. Mushroom growth is another: To push their way through asphalt, a mushroom must inflate with water. For this to happen, water must travel rapidly through the network from one place to another and flow into a developing mushroom in a carefully directed pulse.”

30. “Cords and rhizomorphs are a good reminder that mycelial networks are transport networks. Boddy’s mycelial road map is another good illustration. Mushroom growth is another: To push their way through asphalt, a mushroom must inflate with water. For this to happen, water must travel rapidly through the network from one place to another and flow into a developing mushroom in a carefully directed pulse.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake Quote: “The idea that a neat line can be drawn that separates nonhumans from humans with “real minds” and “real comprehension” has been curtly dismissed by the philosopher Daniel Dennett as an “archaic myth.” Brains didn’t evolve their tricks from scratch, and many of their characteristics reflect more ancient processes that existed long before recognizable brains arose.”

31. “The idea that a neat line can be drawn that separates nonhumans from humans with “real minds” and “real comprehension” has been curtly dismissed by the philosopher Daniel Dennett as an “archaic myth.” Brains didn’t evolve their tricks from scratch, and many of their characteristics reflect more ancient processes that existed long before recognizable brains arose.”

— Merlin Sheldrake

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