“Disassemble the cells of a sponge (by passing them through a sieve, for instance), then dump them into a solution, and they will find their way back together and build themselves into a sponge again. You can do this to them over and over, and they will doggedly reassemble because, like you and me and every other living thing, they have one overwhelming impulse: to continue to be.”
Page 380
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)
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Bill Bryson 112
American author 1951Related quotes

Entry (1960)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
Context: Total innovation is a flight from comparison and also from imitation. Those who discover things for themselves and express them in their own way are not overly bothered by the fact that others have already discovered these things — have even discovered them over and over again — and have expressed what they found in all manner of ways.

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 92.
On Doing Things Right
Source: Looking for Alibrandi

“You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.”
Letter to Cassandra (1808-06-15) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

A Hazy Shade of Winter
Song lyrics, Bookends (1968)

Familiar Talks on Science, Volume 1, 1899, p. 172
Nature's Miracles (1900)