Konrad Lorenz

“Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they kno...”

“Третье великое препятствие человеческого самопознания — по крайней мере в нашей западной культуре — это наследие идеалистической философии. Она делит мир на две части: мир вещей, который иде...”

“The truth about an animal is far more exciting and altogether more beautiful than all the myths woven about it.”

“No such thing as a false analogy exists: an analogy can be more or less detailed and hence more or less informative.”

“In the course of evolution, it constantly happens that, independently of each other, two different forms of life take similar, parallel paths in adapting themselves to the same external circ...”

“Most of the vices and mortal sins condemned today correspond to inclinations that were purely adaptive or at least harmless in primitive man.”

“Ethologists are often accused of drawing false analogies between animal and human behaviour. However, no such thing as a false analogy exists: an analogy can be more or less detailed and, he...”

“There is indeed the possibility that the evolutionary process has, in gray antiquity, bred into us an excess of aggression.”

“Barking dogs occasionally bite, but laughing men hardly ever shoot.”

“'I don't need brains,' says the billionaire contemptuously. 'I'm brainy enough myself!' The broker cries out in desperation, 'What, in heaven's name, do you want?' 'Goodness,' is the answer.”

“The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be.”

“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”

“It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.”

“I believe that present day civilized man suffers from insufficient discharge of his aggressive drive.”

“We had better dispense with the personification of evil, because it leads, all too easily, to the most dangerous kind of war: religious war.”

“I consider early childhood events as most essential to a man's scientific and philosophical development.”

“From a neighbour, I got a one-day-old duckling and found, to my intense joy, that it transferred its following response to my person. At the same time, my interest became irreversibly fixate...”

“Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.”

“I grew up in the large house and the larger garden of my parents in Altenberg. They were supremely tolerant of my inordinate love for animals.”

“The father-mother family with two children isolated in a city flat is already insufficient.”