Monkey Quotes (10)

Borel makes the amusing supposition of a million monkeys allowed to play upon the keys of a million typewriters. What is the chance that this wanton activity should reproduce exactly all of the volumes which are contained in the library of the British Museum? It certainly is not a large chance, but it may be roughly calculated, and proves in fact to be considerably larger than the chance that a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen will separate into the two pure constituents. After we have learned to estimate such minute chances, and after we have overcome our fear of numbers which are very much larger or very much smaller than those ordinarily employed, we might proceed to calculate the chance of still more extraordinary occurrences, and even have the boldness to regard the living cell as a result of random arrangement and rearrangement of its atoms. However, we cannot but feel that this would be carrying extrapolation too far. This feeling is due not merely to a recognition of the enormous complexity of living tissue but to the conviction that the whole trend of life, the whole process of building up more and more diverse and complex structures, which we call evolution, is the very opposite of that which we might expect from the laws of chance.
The Anatomy of Science (1926), 158-9.
See also:  |  Atom (85)  |  Émile Borel (2)  |  Calculate (2)  |  Cell (43)  |  Chance (33)  |  Complexity (18)  |  Complexity (18)  |  Conviction (5)  |  Diversity (16)  |  Evolution (229)  |  Extraordinary (3)  |  Library (12)  |  Life (155)  |  Life (155)  |  Nitrogen (5)  |  Number (45)  |  Opposite (8)  |  Oxygen (13)  |  Structure (33)  |  Tissue (6)  |  Typewriter (5)

Coolidge is a better example of evolution than either Bryan or Darrow, for he knows when not to talk, which is the biggest asset the monkey possesses over the human.
[Referring to the Scopes trial, with Darrow defending a teacher being prosecuted for teaching evolution in the state of Tennessee.]
'Rogers Thesaurus'. Saturday Review (25 Aug 1962). In Will Rogers' Weekly Articles (1981), Vol. 2, 66.
See also:  |  Bryan_William (2)  |  Evolution (229)  |  Human (37)  |  Politics (18)  |  Scopes_John (3)  |  Teaching (9)

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey-cage.
Chrestomathy (1949), 622. In James E. Combs, Dan D. Nimmo, The Comedy of Democracy (1996), 19. by James E. Combs, Dan D. Nimmo
See also:  |  Art And Science (17)

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.
The Descent of Man (1871), Vol. 2, 404-5.
See also:  |  Evolution (229)  |  Human Nature (28)  |  Savage (5)  |  Slave (4)  |  Superstition (23)

I confess freely to you I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.
Letter to John Dennis (10 Jul 1695). In William Makepeace Thackeray, Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (1885), 21.
See also:  |  Evolution (229)

Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee and spirituous liqueurs.
The Descent of Man (1871), Vol. 1, 12.
See also:  |  Drink (2)

MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  222.
See also:  |  Humour (89)

The probable fact is that we are descended not only from monkeys but from monks.
A Thousand and One Epigrams (1911). In Preachments: Elbert Hubbard's Selected Writings (1998), Part 4, 438.
See also:  |  Descent Of Man (3)  |  Evolution (229)

Visualize yourself confronted with the task of killing, one after the other, a cabbage, a fly, a fish, a lizard, a guinea pig, a cat, a dog, a monkey and a baby chimpanzee. In the unlikely case that you should experience no greater inhibitions in killing the chimpanzee than in destroying the cabbage or the fly, my advice to you is to commit suicide at your earliest possible convenience, because you are a weird monstrosity and a public danger.
'The Enmity Between Generations and Its Probable Ethological Causes'. In Richard I. Evans, Konrad Lorenz: The Man and his Ideas (1975), 227.
See also:  |  Cabbage (2)  |  Cat (4)  |  Chimpanzee (3)  |  Danger (9)  |  Dog (6)  |  Fish (11)  |  Fly (9)  |  Inhibition (4)  |  Kill (7)  |  Monster (3)  |  Suicide (8)

We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.
The Descent of Man (1871), Vol. 2, 389.
See also:  |  Evolution (229)  |  Man (112)

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