[Bacteria are the] dark matter of the biological world [with 4 million mostly unknown species in a ton of soil].
E. O. WilsonThe genius of human society is in fact the ease with which alliances are formed, broken, and reconstituted, always with strong emotional appeals to rules believed to be absolute.
E. O. WilsonMating Strategy is influenced by the cardinal fact that women have more at stake in sexual activity than men, because of the limited age span in which they can reproduce and the heavy investment required of them with each child conceived. In courtship women consistently emphasize commitment of resources and material security.
E. O. WilsonScience and technology are what we can do; morality is what we agree we should or should not do.
E. O. WilsonThe true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic.
E. O. WilsonBy any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified. Today the greatest divide within humanity is not between races, or religions, or even, as is widely believed, between the literate and illiterate. It is the chasm that separates scientific from prescientific cultures.
E. O. Wilson