The quantity and quality of consciousness, one may say, have always been growing throughout geological times. In this respect man, in whom nervous organisation and therefore psychological powers have attained an undisputed maximum, may be considered, scientifically, as a natural centre of evolution of the primates.

There have only been about a half dozen genuinely important events in the four-billion-year saga of life on Earth: single-celled life, multicelled life, differentiation into plants and animals, movement of animals from water to land, and the advent of mammals and consciousness.

Knowing that we are primates, I think, is a fascinating discovery, and a very interesting and rather cheering one.

America is not nearly done. We’re only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows… what color we will be? It is all something that, maybe, our descendants – if they survive that long – will see.

Everywhere on Earth, at this moment, in the new spiritual atmosphere created by the appearance of the idea of evolution, there float, in a state of extreme mutual sensitivity, love of God and faith in the world: the two essential components of the Ultra-human.

The fact that the colors in the flower have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see the colors. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also exist in lower forms of life?

There’s no way to remove the observer – us – from our perceptions of the world.

In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

To discover and know has always been a deep tendency of our nature. Can we not recognize it already in caveman?

Many people in this world are still so identified with every thought that arises in their head. There is not the slightest space of awareness there.

I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

Transformation literally means going beyond your form.

His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours.

When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years later it became sort of serious-looking and a bit foreboding.

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

Everybody should have a fair deal; everybody should have the chance to life in this world. If we were evolved as human beings, we would hopefully be able to alleviate suffering in the world.

I miss the early days; I do. I was so lucky. I basically had it to myself, learning about these chimpanzees. Nobody knew anything about them. Discovering their different personalities, different life histories. I was lucky.

We start out a million years ago in a small community on some grassy plain; we hunt animals, have children, and develop a rich social, sexual, and intellectual life, but we know almost nothing about our surroundings.

Is evolution a theory, a system, or an hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true.

We must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world – not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.

It has actually been suggested that warfare may have been the principle evolutionary pressure that created the huge gap between the human brain and that of our closest living relatives, the anthropoid apes. Whole groups of hominids with inferior brains could not win wars and were therefore exterminated.

My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what’s around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.

It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Eventually, all companies are replaced.

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

Happiness is just another of the tricks that our genetic system plays on us to carry out its only role, which is the survival of the species.

In the 1960s, people were trying to get away from the pop song format. Tracks were getting longer, or much, much shorter.

Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.

Everything has changed, and nothing has changed more than the world of fashion.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

People say maybe we have a soul and chimpanzees don’t. I feel that it’s quite possible that if we have souls, chimpanzees have souls as well.

Grace is not part of consciousness; it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

Regarded zoologically, man is today an almost isolated figure in nature. In his cradle, he was less isolated.

Dance music is no longer a simple Donna Summer beat. It’s become a whole language that I find fascinating and exciting. Eventually, it will lose the dance tag and join the fore of rock.

Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.

I’m here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn’t make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.

I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve. As a man, as a human, as a father, as a lover.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

Whatever we believe about how we got to be the extraordinary creatures we are today is far less important than bringing our intellect to bear on how do we get together now around the world and get out of the mess that we’ve made. That’s the key thing now. Never mind how we got to be who we are.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

I’ve definitely seen bands before they made money kind of change their thing on the next tour, and I prefer it when it’s a little more raw.

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.

If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it’s always expensive.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

Sometimes what works 40 years ago doesn’t work today.

The ‚I think‘ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‚I breathe‘ which actually does accompany them.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‚Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this‘ – have become commonplace in films and music too.

The spirit desires to remain with its body, because, without the organic instruments of that body, it can neither act, nor feel anything.

I’ve written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence, human emotions.

I read the ‚Old Testament‘ all the way through when I was about 13 and was horrified. A few months afterwards I read ‚The Origin Of Species‘, hallucinating very mildly because I was in bed with flu at the time. Despite that, or because of that, it all made perfect sense.