Evolution is the creation-myth of our age. By telling us our origin it shapes our views of what we are. It influences not just our thought, but our feelings and actions too, in a way which goes far beyond its official function as a biological theory.

The trouble with human beings is not really that they love themselves too much; they ought to love themselves more. The trouble is simply that they don’t love others enough. "The End of Anthropocentrism?

The world in which the kestrel moves, the world that it sees, is, and always will be, entirely beyond us. That there are such worlds all around us is an essential feature of our world.

It is extremely urgent to try and adapt our thoughts realistically to a world which has no fixed general direction either upward or downward, but is likely to vary largely according to what we do.

Few scientists would treat their cars as badly as they treat their conceptual schemes.

It is this claim to a monopoly of meaning, rather than any special scientific doctrine, that makes science and religion look like competitors today. Scientism emerged not as the conclusion of scientific argument but as a chosen element in a worldview - a vision that attracted people by its contrast with what went before - which is, of course, how people very often do make such decisions, even ones that they afterwards call scientific.

The symbolism of meat-eating is never neutral. To himself, the meat-eater seems to be eating life. To the vegetarian, he seems to be eating death. There is a kind of gestalt-shift between the two positions which makes it hard to change, and hard to raise questions on the matter at all without becoming embattled.