Robert Frenay quotes

“Nature is flexible and resilient. Nature likes redundancy and dispersion. It is approximate and deals in gradients. All boundaries are permeable. Nature nests small systems like molecules within larger systems like cells, which in turn are nested in systems called organs, organisms, ecosystems. We grew from ancient one-celled ancestors. Nature likes mergers: we contain multitudes of other life forms within us. We stand at the crest of four billion years, bacteria molded into wondrous form, burning with a slow fire and about to take the next step.”
-- Robert Frenay

Source : Robert Frenay (2006). “Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired by Living Things”, p.32, Macmillan

#Cells Quotes #Years Quotes #Ecosystems Quotes

“Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.”

“The cell, over the billions of years of her life, has covered the earth many times with her substance, found ways to control herself and her environment, and insure her survival.”

“If we examine the accomplishments of man in his most advanced endeavors, in theory and in practice, we find that the cell has done all this long before him, with greater resourcefulness and much greater efficiency.”

“It is the cells which create and maintain in us, during the span of our lives, our will to live and survive, to search and experiment, and to struggle.”

“Looking back 25 years later, what I may say is that the facts have been far better than the dreams. In the long course of cell life on this earth it remained, for our age for our generation, to receive the full ownership of our inheritance.”

“The year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion... But the important lesson was this: there's nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren't bad per se... the key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurturing ones (compassion), the healthy ones (love thy neighbor), not the bitter ones.”

“The World Health Organization ... estimated that 1.6 million years of healthy living are lost every year in Europe because of noise pollution.”

“A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist.”

Source : "Uncommon Law". Book by A. P. Herbert, 1935.

“I owned a 1972 Plymouth Valiant that we bought for $125. It was infested with cockroaches and geckos - it was its own little ecosystem.”

“If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world's ecosystems would collapse”