“A cell is a complex structure, with its investing membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus.”

— Charles Darwin

"Pangenesis -- Mr. Darwin's Reply to Professor Delpino" Scientific Opinion (20 October 1869) page 426 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=F1748b&viewtype=image
Detractors sometimes claim Darwin thought that the cell was an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm. This quote proves otherwise.
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Charles Darwin 161

British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by… 1809–1882

Albert L. Lehninger (1917–1986) American biochemist

Principles of Biochemistry, Ch. 1 : The Foundations of Biochemistry

“The learner is the key entity and occupies the nucleus of the systems complex of education.”

Béla H. Bánáthy (1919–2003) Hungarian linguist and systems scientist

Source: Systems Design of Education (1991), p. 96

“You can tell
By the laugh in the dark
at the sound of the bell
You can tell
It's the nucleus burning
inside of the cell…”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"Milwaukee" · YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqSYzOXkthg
Song lyrics, The Both (2014)

“Cells of all kinds share certain structural features.”

Albert L. Lehninger (1917–1986) American biochemist

Principles of Biochemistry, Ch. 1 : The Foundations of Biochemistry

“I am tired of hearing that the DNA in my cells nucleus is the complete blueprint of what is, or could be, me. There is more to me than that. The sequence of my nuclear DNA is not "My Genome."”

Gottfried Schatz (1936–2015) biochemist

Jeff's view on science and scientists (Amsterdam, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006, ISBN 0-444-52133-X, pbk.), Ch. 4: "My other genomes" (p. 33).

“The fundamental division of forms of life on Earth is not that between plants and animals, as is commonly assumed, but between prokaryotes—organisms composed of cells with no nucleus, that is, bacteria—and eukaryotes—all other life forms.”

Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) American evolutionary biologist

Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors (1986)

“If you take as your pattern the wings of feathered birds, these are more powerful in structure of bone and sinew because they are penetrable, that is to say the feathers are separated from one another and the air passes through them. But the bat is aided by its membrane, which binds the whole together and is not penetrated by the air.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight

“[The law of evolution states that] complexity increases in terms of differentiation and structure.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1970s, Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution, 1978, p. 10 as cited in P.P. Kandelaars (1999) Economic Models of Material-Product Chains for Environmental Policy Analysis. p. 13

“We can assume that in a relatively short time — perhaps within 100 million years — the one celled organism evolved into a colony of cells. With the further passage of time, groups of cells within those colonies assumed specialized functions of food-gathering, digestion, the structural features of an outer skin, and so on; thus began the stage of evolution leading to the complex, many-celled creatures which dominate life today.
The fossil record contains no trace of these preliminary stages in the development of many-celled organisms. The first clues to the existence of relatively advanced forms of life consist of a few barely discernible tracks, presumably made in the primeval slime by soft, wriggling wormlike animals. These are found in rocks about one billion years old. These meager remains are the earliest traces of many-celled animal life on the planet.”

Robert Jastrow (1925–2008) American astronomer

Red Giants and White Dwarfs : Man's Descent from the Stars (1971), p. 249.

“Remember that your bird should have no other model than the bat, because its membranes serve as an armour or rather as a means of building together the pieces of its armour, that is the framework of the wings.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight

“A cell is a complex structure, with its investing membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus.”

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