“… it is certainly wrong to condemn poor old Homo Sapiens as the only species to kill his own kind, the only inheritor of the mark of Cain, and similar melodramatic charges.”

— Richard Dawkins, book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 5. Aggression: stability and the selfish machine

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "… it is certainly wrong to condemn poor old Homo Sapiens as the only species to kill his own kind, the only inheritor o…" by Richard Dawkins?

Richard Dawkins322

English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941

Pavan Sukhdev (1960) Indian environmental economist

Foreword to Bankrupting Nature: Denying Our Planetary Boundaries https://books.google.it/books?id=CxHuA5AZ92AC&pg=PR0 by Anders Wijkman and Johan Rockström (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012), p. xi.

“We are indeed human beings. We are merely not Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens is a species, something into which one is born. Humanity one chooses. Men who choose inhumanity are merely upright beasts.”

John C. Wright (1961) American novelist and technical writer

Source: Titans of Chaos (2007), Chapter 6, “Six Score Leagues Northwest of Paradise” Section 4 (p. 75)

“Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

"The Calendar's New Clothes," New York Times (30 December 1999)

“Ah, but they is not killing their own kind," the BFG said. "Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

The BFG (1982)

“I'm a long-haul Cosmic anthropologist, which means I hop around isolate-planets (like Earth) in order to study Advanced Language Species (like homo sapiens).”

Yakoub Islam

"Commence Commence Commence" (24 July 2011) 
Captain Jul's Mission Blog (2011 - 2013)
Context: I'm a long-haul Cosmic anthropologist, which means I hop around isolate-planets (like Earth) in order to study Advanced Language Species (like homo sapiens). I specialise in First Stage Globalization (FSG) terrestrials. Most FSG planets have whole-world silicon-based communication technologies in situ, and thus as soon as I’m near enough, I ’plug in’, and shortly after make contact. Well, I’ve been plugged in for quite some time, but this is my first contact. Sorry about that.

“While Homo sapiens may not be saintly, they're pretty decent. We have what we have. Most importantly, there's a great chance to nurture and create a new kind of human — Homo humanus, the Humane Human.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“I am ashamed of belonging to the species Homo Sapiens…You & I may be thankful to have lived in happier times – you more than I, because you have no children.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Lucy Donnelly (23 June 1946)
1940s

“The Bodo skull and the Kaprina and Shanidar Neandertal skeletons raise the possibility that two distinct, non-spaiens species of Homo had had rituals and cultural practices that we have assumed are only within the capacity of members of our own species.”

Jeffrey H. Schwartz (1948) American anthropologist

Source: What the Bones Tell Us (1997), Ch. 1

“There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones.”

Desmond Morris book The Naked Ape

Introduction; Republished in: " The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris https://books.google.nl/books?id=a0oEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA95," LIFE, Vol. 63, Nr. 25 (22 Dec. 1967), p. 95 <br class="br">The Naked Ape (1967)

“He saw a lawyer killing a viper
On a dunghill hard, by his own stable
And the devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of
Cain and his brother, Abel.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

"The Devils Thoughts" (c. 1834)

“… it is certainly wrong to condemn poor old Homo Sapiens as the only species to kill his own kind, the only inheritor of the mark of Cain, and similar melodramatic charges.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Richard Dawkins322

Related quotes

Related topics