“The law of evolution is that the strongest survives.”
“Yes, and the strongest, in the existence of any social species, are those who are most social. In human terms, most ethical.”
Source: Hainish Cycle, The Dispossessed (1974), Chapter 7 (p. 220)
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Ursula K. Le Guin292
American writer 1929–2018Related quotes
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist
On the morality of applying eugenic Darwinism to the social order. Jesus Rediscovered (1969, 1979), ch. XVII. A Dialogue with Roy Trevivian, Doubleday, New York, p. 203. http://books.google.com/books?ei=xYd9VPDlHsaZNreOgYAC&id=yTwNAQAAMAAJ&dq=038514654X&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22kicks+the+weakest+in+the+teeth%22+ http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/mugridge/jred/jredcont.htm <br class="br">Context: If you say to me that men are so made that the strongest kicks the weakest in the teeth and then the strongest survive, and go on to argue that if you apply this to economics you will get a happy society, you have done an irreparable wrong as we know, as we have seen.
Charles Fort (1874–1932) American writer
Darwinism:
That survivors survive.
Source: The Book of The Damned (1919), Ch. 3, part 1 at resologist.net
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"
The earliest known appearance of this basic statement is a paraphrase of Darwin in the writings of Leon C. Megginson, a management sociologist at Louisiana State University. [[Megginson, Leon C., Lessons from Europe for American Business, Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, 1963, 44(1), 3-13, p. 4]] Megginson's paraphrase (with slight variations) was later turned into a quotation. See the summary of Nicholas Matzke's findings in "One thing Darwin didn't say: the source for a misquotation" http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/one-thing-darwin-didnt-say at the Darwin Correspondence Project. The statement is incorrectly attributed, without any source, to Clarence Darrow in Improving the Quality of Life for the Black Elderly: Challenges and Opportunities : Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, first session, September 25, 1987 (1988). <br class="br">Misattributed
Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union
As quoted in Improving the Quality of Life for the Black Elderly: Challenges and Opportunities : Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, first session, September 25, 1987 (1988)
This quote's earliest known source is from Leon C. Megginson (see Charles Darwin)
Misattributed
Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher
Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 1, The Origins Of Altruism, p. 5
Brooks Adams book The Law of Civilization and Decay
Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on History (1895), p. 165.
“Evolution is not a force but a process; not a cause but a law.”
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor
On Compromise http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11557/11557-h/11557-h.htm (1874).
Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) Polish scientist and philosopher
Source: Manhood of Humanity (1921), p. 136. Chapter: Capitalistic Era.
Context: Such as contribute most to human progress and human enlightenment — men like Gutenberg, Copernicus, Newton, Leibnitz, Watts, Franklin, Mendeleieff, Pasteur, Sklodowska-Curie, Edison, Steinmetz, Loeb, Dewey, Keyser, Whitehead, Russell, Poincaré, William Benjamin Smith, Gibbs, Einstein, and many others — consume no more bread than the simplest of their fellow mortals. Indeed such men are often in want. How many a genius has perished inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where animal standards prevail and "survival of the fittest" means, not survival of the "fittest in time-binding capacity," but survival of the strongest in ruthlessness and guile — in space-binding competition!
Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer
As "Trudy"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)