“Ants are more like the parts of an animal than entities on their own. They are mobile cells, circulating through a dense connective tissue of other ants in a matrix of twigs. The circuits are so intimately interwoven that the anthill meets all the essential criteria of an organism.”
"Antaeus in Manhattan"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)
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Lewis Thomas31
American physician, poet and educator 1913–1993Related quotes
“An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox”
Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
“[Footnote:] An Ant on a hot stove-lid runs faster than an Ant on a cold one. Who wouldn't?”
Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer
The Ant, from Insects for Everybody
How to Attract the Wombat (1949)
Friedrich Nietzsche book The Will to Power
Sec. 660 : The Body as a Political Structure
The Will to Power (1888)
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author
Historia Vitæ et Mortis; Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Exper. 100, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist
Interview by Michael Powell in the Washington Post, May 5, 2002 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/05/05/an-eminence-with-no-shades-of-gray/7fbaf1b5-ce87-45e3-a84f-604c61bb378e/?utm_term=.e1d833548377 <br class="br">Quotes 2000s, 2002
“It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?”
Henry David Thoreau Letters to Various Persons
Letter to Harrison Blake (16 November 1857)
Source: Letters to Various Persons
“The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap.”
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic
Introduction
The Culture of Cities (1938)
Context: The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.