“The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.”

Source: Lives of a Cell, The

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic…" by Lewis Thomas?

Lewis Thomas31

American physician, poet and educator 1913–1993

Related quotes

“DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”

Richard Dawkins book River Out of Eden

Source: River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

“Nature proceeds by blunders; that is its way. It is also ours. So if we have blundered by regarding consciousness as a blunder, why make a fuss over it? Our self-removal from this planet would still be a magnificent move, a feat so luminous it would bedim the sun. What do we have to lose? No evil would attend our departure from this world, and the many evils we have known would go extinct along with us. So why put off what would be the most laudable masterstroke of our existence, and the only one?”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Ohne Musik wäre das Leben ein Irrtum.
Maxims and Arrows, 33
Source: Twilight of the Idols (1888)

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

“And we would play together,
like fine musicians should,
And it would sound like music,
and the music would sound good.
But in real life I'm stuck with
that same old formula,
me and my monophonic symphony,
six string orchestra.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Six String Orchestra
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

“The ancients, persuaded that there is no body without a moving force, regarded the substance of bodies as composed of two primitive attributes. It was held that, through one of these attributes, this substance has the capacity for moving and, through the other, the capacity for being moved.”

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751) French physician and philosopher

Source: The Natural History of the Soul (1745), Ch. V Concerning the Moving Force of Matter, p.156

“Nietzsche said without music, life would be a mistake. To me, without books, life would be a mistake.”

Ernest J. Gaines (1933–2019) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

“Without music, life would be a blank to me.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

“A world that is faithless would not be without the arts, either. Those don’t rest on faith, so imaginative art, literature, and music would still be with us. Too, we would retain justice, law, and compassion, perhaps in even greater measure than now, for our judgment wouldn’t be warped by adherence to unevidenced divine strictures.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 261

“Our moments are music, and sometimes – just sometimes – we can catch them and put them into some lasting form. If we didn’t have music, I don’t think we could ever be truly happy, and if we didn’t have special moments, we would never find music.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: How They Met, and Other Stories

“The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Lewis Thomas31

Related quotes

Related topics