A Quote by H. Bentley Glass

Without birds to feed on them, the insects would multiply catastrophically. The insects, not man or other proud species, are really the only ones fitted for survival in the nuclear age. The cockroach, a venerable and hardy species, will take over the habitats of the foolish humans, and compete only with other insects or bacteria.

H. Bentley Glass

Quote Topics

Age Bacteria Birds Compete Feed Fitted Foolish Hardy Humans Insects Man Multiply Nuclear Only Other Over Proud Really Species Survival Take Them Venerable Will Without Would

Quote Author

H. Bentley Glass
American - Columnist
January 17, 1906 - January 16, 2005

I do not see why men sheould be so proud insects have the more ancient lineage according to the scientists insects were insects when man was only a burbling whatisit.

Don Marquis

It began as this desire to do this science fiction movie about perhaps one of the last insects left that nobody's done anything on, which is the cockroach - and truly one of the most frightening insects.

Michael O'Donoghue

The only clear thing is that we humans are the only species with the power to destroy the earth as we know it. The birds have no such power, nor do the insects, nor does any mammal. Yet if we have the capacity to destroy the earth, so, too, do we have the capacity to protect it.

Dalai Lama

Natural selection certainly operates. It explains how bacteria will gain antibiotic resistance; it will explain how insects get insecticide resistance, but it doesn't explain how you get bacteria or insects in the first place.

William A. Dembski

Planting native species in our gardens and communities is increasingly important, because indigenous insects, birds and wildlife rely on them. Over thousands, and sometimes millions, of years they have co-evolved to live in local climate and soil conditions.

David Suzuki

The purpose of farming is to deprive other species of the land and sequester it for our own use. But by perfecting the art of monoculture, it has become too easy for us to exterminate everything else, leaving no wild plants, no food for insects, and a barren land for birds.

Tristram Stuart

A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.

Ambrose Bierce

Insects are my secret fear. That's what terrifies me more than anything - insects.

Michael O'Donoghue

The mortal enemies of man are not his fellows of another continent or race; they are the aspects of the physical world which limit or challenge his control, the disease germs that attack him and his domesticated plants and animals, and the insects that carry many of these germs as well as working notable direct injury. This is not the age of man, however great his superiority in size and intelligence; it is literally the age of insects.

Warder Clyde Allee

Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects. There are millions of species of organisms and we know almost nothing about them.

E. O. Wilson

I'm obsessed with insects, particularly insect flight. I think the evolution of insect flight is perhaps one of the most important events in the history of life. Without insects, there'd be no flowering plants. Without flowering plants, there would be no clever, fruit-eating primates giving TED Talks.

Michael Dickinson

Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They're the cemetery workers.

E. O. Wilson

Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects.

E. O. Wilson

From one point of view we can say that we have human bodies and are practicing the Buddha's teachings and are thus much better than insects. But we can also say that insects are innocent and free from guile, where as we often lie and misrepresent ourselves in devious ways in order to achieve our ends or better ourselves. From this perspective, we are much worse than insects.

Dalai Lama

A river or stream is a cycle of energy from sun to plants to insects to fish. It is a continuum broken only by humans.