“While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.”
“I assume he was descended from apes like all the rest of us, but clearly in his case it had been a fairly gentle slope.”
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989)
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Bill Bryson 112
American author 1951Related quotes
“Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”
Source: A Mencken Chrestomathy
“Is it on your grandmother’s or grandfather’s side that you are descended from an ape?”
To Thomas Henry Huxley, debating Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/evolution/how-did-evol-theory-develop/the-story/index.html
“Clearly, we have both of these sides in us, and that's why I sometimes call us "the bipolar apes."”
The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)
Context: It is true that the chimpanzee is dominance-oriented, violent, territorial. But it's also cooperative in many ways, and so that side is sometimes forgotten. The bonobo is sensual, sensitive, sexual, a peacemaker, but also can have a nasty side, and that's sometimes forgotten. So both species are sort of the ends of the spectrum, and we fall somewhere in between. Clearly, we have both of these sides in us, and that's why I sometimes call us "the bipolar apes."
Source: 1840s, Philosophical Fragments (1844), p. 76
God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)