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

E. O. Wilson

To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.

E. O. Wilson

If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.

E. O. Wilson

Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.

E. O. Wilson

Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.

E. O. Wilson

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.

E. O. Wilson

Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.

E. O. Wilson

Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.

E. O. Wilson

Every kid has a bug period... I never grew out of mine.

E. O. Wilson

There is no better high than discovery.

E. O. Wilson

Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.

E. O. Wilson

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