“To a physicist like me, life looks to be little short of magic: all those dumb molecules conspiring to achieve such clever things!”

—  Paul Davies

Source: The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence (2010), Ch. 2: 'Life: Freak Side-Show or Cosmic Imperative?', p. 31

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 "To a physicist like me, life looks to be little short of magic: all those dumb molecules conspiring to achieve such cle…" by Paul Davies?
Paul Davies photo
Paul Davies 13
British physicist 1946

Related quotes

Steve Jobs photo

“When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Interview in WIRED magazine (February 1996)
1990s
Context: When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.

“All those little maneuvers I did out of things that were happening in my life that upset me.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Edie : American Girl (1982)
Context: I made a mask out of my face because I didn't realize I was quite beautiful. God blessed me so. I practically destroyed it. I had to wear heavy black eyelashes like bat wings, and dark lines under my eyes, and cut all my hair off, my long dark hair. Cut it off and strip it silver and blonde. All those little maneuvers I did out of things that were happening in my life that upset me.

“I've noticed that when I get quoted in . sig files, it's never any of the actual clever things I say all the time. Usually it's something dumb.”

Jamie Zawinski (1968) American programmer

http://inkee.org/quote/dnaquotes.txt
DNA quotes
Inkee.

Miguel de Unamuno photo

“Everything in me that conspires to break the unity and continuity of my life conspires to destroy me and consequently to destroy itself.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), I : The Man of Flesh and Bone
Context: Everything in me that conspires to break the unity and continuity of my life conspires to destroy me and consequently to destroy itself. Every individual in a people who conspires to break the spiritual unity and continuity of that people tends to destroy it and to destroy himself as a part of that people.

Paulo Coelho photo

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

E quando você quer alguma coisa, todo o Universo conspira para que você realize seu desejo.
Variant: And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 22; a variant of this has become attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen" — but no occurrence of this a statement has been located prior to in The Gift of Depression : Twenty-one Inspirational Stories Sharing Experience, Strength, and Hope (2001) by John F. Brown, p. 56

Tjalling Koopmans photo

“While it was long possible and sometimes tempting for physicists to deny the usefulness of the molecular hypothesis, we economists have the good luck of being some of the ‘molecules’ of economic life ourselves, and of having the possibility through human contacts to study the behavior of other ‘molecules’.”

Tjalling Koopmans (1910–1985) Dutch American economist

Tjalling Koopmans in: Review of economics and statistics, Vol. 31 -(1949), p. 87

Cormac McCarthy photo

“Ever dumb thing I ever done in my life there was a decision I made before that got me into it. It was never the dumb thing. It was always some choice I'd made before it.”

Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses

Source: All the Pretty Horses

Frank Zappa photo

“After all, he wrote this book here, and in the book it says he made us all to be just like him! So if we're dumb, then God is dumb — and maybe even a little ugly on the side.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Dumb All Over.
You Are What You Is (1981)

Cassandra Clare photo

“I bet you thought you were very clever, sneaking off like that." "Medium clever, "Simon acknowledged. "Like a cross between George Clooney in Ocean's Eleven and those MythbBusters guys, but, you know, better-looking.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Kate Bush photo

“There is magic within
There is magic without
Follow me and you'll learn
Just what life's all about.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Singles and rarities
Context: When the fantasy bells
Of the universe ring
You can fly through the sky
On a dragonfly's wing.
There is magic within
There is magic without
Follow me and you'll learn
Just what life's all about.

Related topics