“It is natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, of a never-ending advance towards largeness and complexity — in a word, towards us. We flatter ourselves. Most of the real diversity in evolution has been small-scale. We large things are just flukes — an interesting side branch.”

— Bill Bryson , book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Page 311
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)

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 natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, of a never-ending advance towards la…" by Bill Bryson?

Bill Bryson 112

American author 1951

Related quotes

“I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD … It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be.”

Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) Swiss chemist

LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

“A new large-scale war will end with the destruction of human culture and civilization. Therefore, this this trial must contribute toward preventing such degenerate wars in the future, and toward establishing rules whereby human beings can live together.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

Nuremberg trials, (31 August 1945)

“Conduct and character are largely determined by the nature of the words we currently use to discuss ourselves and the world around us.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Quoted as the opening passage of "BOOK ONE: The Functions of Language" in Language in Thought and Action (1949) by S. I. Hayakawa, p. 3
Words and Their Meanings (1940)
Context: A great deal of attention has been paid … to the technical languages in which men of science do their specialized thinking … But the colloquial usages of everyday speech, the literary and philosophical dialects in which men do their thinking about the problems of morals, politics, religion and psychology — these have been strangely neglected. We talk about "mere matters of words" in a tone which implies that we regard words as things beneath the notice of a serious-minded person.
This is a most unfortunate attitude. For the fact is that words play an enormous part in our lives and are therefore deserving of the closest study. The old idea that words possess magical powers is false; but its falsity is the distortion of a very important truth. Words do have a magical effect — but not in the way that magicians supposed, and not on the objects they were trying to influence. Words are magical in the way they affect the minds of those who use them. "A mere matter of words," we say contemptuously, forgetting that words have power to mould men's thinking, to canalize their feeling, to direct their willing and acting. Conduct and character are largely determined by the nature of the words we currently use to discuss ourselves and the world around us.