Top 40 Paul Stamets Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Mycelium is Earth’s natural Internet.”

— Paul Stamets

2. “Fungi are the interface organisms between life and death.”

— Paul Stamets

3. “We need to have a paradigm shift in our consciousness. If we don’t get our act together and come in commonality and understanding with the organisms that sustain us today, not only will we destroy those organisms, but we will destroy ourselves.”

— Paul Stamets

4. “Lions mane may be our first smart mushroom. It is a safe, edible fungus that appears to confer cognitive benefits on our aging population.”

— Paul Stamets

5. “Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozen that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health.”

— Paul Stamets

6. “I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind. The mycelium stays in constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges.”

— Paul Stamets

7. “Vitamin D from mushrooms is not only vegan and vegetarian friendly, but you can prepare your own by exposing mushrooms to the summer sun.”

— Paul Stamets

8. “The task that we face today is to understand the language of nature.”

— Paul Stamets

9. “Of all mushrooms commonly consumed, oyster mushrooms in the genus Pleurotus stand out as exceptional allies for improving human and environmental health. These mushrooms enjoy a terrific reputation as the easiest to cultivate, richly nutritious and medicinally supportive.”

— Paul Stamets

10. “Growing the mycelium of the Chaga mushroom under laboratory conditions provides an ecologically friendly alternative supply of this unique medicinal mushroom.”

— Paul Stamets

11. “Mycologists are few and far between. We are under-funded, poorly represented in the context of other sciences – ironic, as the very foundation of our ecosystems are directly dependent upon fungi, which ultimately create the foundation of soils.”

— Paul Stamets

12. “I love a challenge and saving the Planet seems like a good one.”

— Paul Stamets

13. “Mushrooms have many helpful nutrients, including beta glucans for immune enhancement, ergothioneines for antioxidative potentiation, nerve growth stimulators for helping brain function, and antimicrobial compounds for limiting viruses.”

— Paul Stamets

14. “Today, reishi stands out as one the most valuable of all polypore mushrooms in nature for the benefit of our health. Many naturopaths and doctors prefer organically-grown reishi from pristine environments because they are more pure.”

— Paul Stamets

15. “I believe nature is a force of good. Good is not only a concept, it is a spirit.”

— Paul Stamets

16. “Although oyster mushrooms have been studied extensively and support health in a number of ways, it is also extremely important to always cook oyster mushrooms!”

— Paul Stamets

17. “If you do not know where the mushroom products you are consuming are grown, think twice before eating them.”

— Paul Stamets

18. “Agarikon contains antiviral molecules new to science. Researchers for pharmaceutical companies may have missed its potent antiviral properties. Our analyses show that the mycelial cultures of this mushroom are most active but that the fruitbodies, the natural form of the mushroom, are not.”

— Paul Stamets

19. “Disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, oil spills and radioactive fallout cause massive death of people, pigs, bats and birds. These disasters also impact the immune health of survivors. All harbor viruses.”

— Paul Stamets

20. “Nature is a numbers game. We need all the support we can get as our immune systems and health are under assault from pollution, stress, contaminated food and age-related diseases as our lifespans increase.”

— Paul Stamets

21. “Chaga is one of the weirdest mushrooms you may ever see. A fungal parasite found on birch trees, Chaga is a hardened, blackened, crusty formation that looks like a bursting tumor.”

— Paul Stamets

22. “Although the trends are promising and reishi mushrooms exhibit a number of interesting medicinal properties, modern scientific techniques have yet to affirm its traditional ‘panacea polypore’ status.”

— Paul Stamets

23. “Enoki mushrooms, a tasty variety commonly sold in grocery stores, were one of the first mushrooms studied for preventing cancer.”

— Paul Stamets

24. “Known colloquially as ‘winter,’ ‘golden needle,’ and ‘velvet foot’ mushrooms, enoki mushrooms grow across much of the world, inhabiting dead conifer trees and stumps, and generally appearing throughout the late fall and winter months.”

— Paul Stamets

25. “From dead plant matter to nematodes to bacteria, never underestimate the cleverness of mushrooms to find new food!”

— Paul Stamets

26. “If we just stay at the crest of the mycelial wave, it will take us into heretofore unknown territories that will be just magnificent in their implications.”

— Paul Stamets

27. “I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks. Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amounts of data regarding the movements of all organisms through the landscape.”

— Paul Stamets

28. “The virus-to-cancer connection is where medicinal mushrooms offer unique opportunities for medical research.”

— Paul Stamets

29. “In the wild, an enoki mushroom is often squat-looking and its stem is rarely more than twice as long as the cap is wide. When they are grown by farmers and hobbyists, however, their stems elongate, the caps are smaller, and a forest of golden colored needle-like mushrooms shoot up all at once.”

— Paul Stamets

30. “For many years, I have sought and studied Agarikon, an unusual mushroom native to the old growth conifer forests of North America and Europe.”

— Paul Stamets

31. “NASA considered the possibility of using fungi for interplanetary colonization. Now that we have landed rovers on Mars, NASA takes seriously the unknown consequences that our microbes will have on seeding other planets. Spores have no borders.”

— Paul Stamets

32. “There are more species of fungi, bacteria, and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are species of plants and vertebrate animals in all of North America. And of these, fungi are the grand recyclers of our planet, the mycomagicians disassembling large organic molecules into simpler forms, which in turn nourish other members of the ecological community. Fungi are the interface organisms between life and death.”

— Paul Stamets

33. “Fungi marched onto land more than a billion years ago. Many fungi partnered with plants, which largely lacked these digestive juices. Mycologists believe that this alliance allowed plants to inhabit land around 700 million years ago. Many millions of years later, one evolutionary branch of fungi led to the development of animals.”

— Paul Stamets

34. “Toxic fungicides like methyl bromide, once touted, not only harm targeted species but also nontargeted organisms and their food chains and threaten the ozone layer.”

— Paul Stamets

35. “What a beautiful inspirational model for how human beings might live: In a shared economy based not on greed but on nurturing relationships and mutual cooperation.”

— Paul Stamets

36. “People want to give up the responsibility of being able to understand and because they can’t understand then they have faith, and they put their faith in other people who say they can understand.”

— Paul Stamets

37. “Through the genius of evolution, the Earth has selected fungal networks as a governing force managing ecosystems.”

— Paul Stamets

38. “If you were a tiny organism in a forest’s soil, you would be enmeshed in a carnival of activity, with mycelium constantly moving through subterranean landscapes like cellular waves, through dancing bacteria and swimming protozoa with nematodes racing like whales through a microcosmic sea of life.”

— Paul Stamets

39. “We face the possibility of being rejected by the biosphere as a virulent organism. But.”

— Paul Stamets

40. “Intact forest ecosystems, by comparison, provide more ecological services than just board feet of lumber. They clean the water, provide shade, and give communities plants, insects, and animals. Protecting our forests is essential not only for our survival now, but also for the survival of generations to come.”

— Paul Stamets