Vertebrate Quotes & Sayings

The development of the Vertebrate proceeds from an axis upward, in two layers, which coalesce at the edges, and also downward, in two layers, which likewise coalesce at the edges. Thus two main tubes are formed, one above the other. During the formation of these, the embryo separates into strata, so that the two main tubes are composed of subordinate tubes which enclose each other as fundamental organs, and are capable of developing into all the organs. — Karl Ernst Von Baer

But really, if you ask me, there is only one kid of plot. One. Stuff happens. That's it. — Nora Raleigh Baskin

He was not notably vertebrate and could hardly look after himself, so how could he look after Crystal? — Iris Murdoch

[O]ne might ask why, in a galaxy of a few hundred billion stars, the aliens are so intent on coming to Earth at all. It would be as if every vertebrate in North America somehow felt drawn to a particular house in Peoria, Illinois. Are we really that interesting? — Seth Shostak

I got interested in palaeontology and vertebrate history - sparked by books on human evolution - then vertebrate evolution. Studying with palaeontologists kindled my interest in fieldwork. — Greg Graffin

[Darwin] gave an answer to the tremendous question that so deeply concerns...What is Man? [He] answered this question to the effect that man is a natural product of the universe;...man is an animal, a vertebrate, a mammal, and a primate....By bringing man into the evolutionary picture, Darwin finally took the last step in our emancipation and finally made our world rational. [Yet] Darwin felt humility and awe that seem to me truly religious. ["Darwin led us into this modern world," 1959, p. 271-272.] — George Gaylord Simpson

I don't like to hold back, because that's how you hurt yourself. — Chester Bennington

Had a person attempted to taste me so soon after we met, I would have been alarmed; but since Athena was an octopus, I was thrilled. Although we couldn't have been more different - I, a terrestrial vertebrate constrained by joints and bound to air; she, a marine mollusk with not a single bone, who breathed water - she was clearly as curious about me as I was about her. — Sy Montgomery

I have also thought of a model city from which all possible cities can be deduced," Marco answered. "It is a city made only of exceptions, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions. If such a city is the most improbable, by reducing the number of abnormal elements, we increase the probability that the city really exists. So I have only to subtract exceptions from my model, and in whatever direction I proceed, I will arrive at one of the cities which, always as an exception, exist. But I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit: I would achieve cities too probable to be real. — Italo Calvino

The need to deal with pathogens has driven the evolution of the vertebrate immune system, so it should not be surprising that experiments with infectious agents have often illuminated key elements of the underlying mechanisms. — Peter C. Doherty

I work out. I'm getting toned, too. The Wii Fit really works your body. When I get off, I'm dying. — Keke Palmer

There is a satisfactory boniness about grammar which the flesh of sheer vocabulary requires before it can become a vertebrate and walk the earth. — Anthony Burgess

In vertebrate paleontology, increasing knowledge leads to triumphant loss of clarity. — Alfred Romer

With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate except Homo sapiens habitually destroys members of his own species. — Anthony Storr

MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle. — Ambrose Bierce

Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover will prove. And if the Thinker thinks passionately enough, the Prover will prove the thought so conclusively that you will never talk a person out of such a belief, even if it is something as remarkable as the notion that there is a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft (" GOD ") who will spend all eternity torturing people who do not believe in his religion. — Robert Anton Wilson

The greatly anticipated 2009 Masters was like going to a Broadway hit and finding out that the star, Sir Tiger Woods, was off that night, and his replacement was the cab driver who dropped you off at the theater. — Dan Jenkins

The circulatory system of man and the vertebrate animals can be considered as made up of a small number of organs or subordinate systems, which are easy to recognize anatomically, and the functions of which are on the whole quite distinct. — August Krogh

Ten thousand years ago, humans plus their pets and livestock accounted for about 0.1% of the terrestrial vertebrate biomass inhabiting the earth; we now account for 98%. — Daniel J. Levitin

At first I was rather unwilling to study Latin grammar. It seemed absurd to waste time analyzing every word I came across - noun, genitive, singular, feminine - when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it - order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby. But as I got deeper into the subject, I became more interested, and the beauty of the language delighted me. — Helen Keller

Raksin worked for Alfred Hitchcock, about whom one of the most famous Raksin anecdotes was spoken. The legendary director declared he wanted no music at all for the oceanic Lifeboat, because he felt audiences would wonder where the music was coming from in the middle of the sea. Raksin said, Ask Hitch where the cameras are coming from. — Paul Zollo

Researchers found a frog in new guinea that is so tiny, they believe it's the smallest vertebrate on the planet. It has the tiniest backbone of any living creature, except members of Congress. — Jay Leno

It is difficult to imagine anyone having any real hopes for the human race in the face of the fact that the great majority of men still believe that the universe is run by a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft and girth, who is nevertheless interested in the minutest details of the private conduct of even the meanest man. — H.L. Mencken

She saw a planet on which there were still seventeen thousand nukes, probably enough to wipe vertebrate life off the face of it, and thought This can't be good. — Jonathan Franzen

Immunologists agreed that an individual vertebrate synthesizes many millions of structurally different forms of antibody molecules even before it encounters an antigen. — Susumu Tonegawa

The lesson of every extinction, says the Smithsonian's Doug Erwin, is that we can't predict what the world will be 5 million years later by looking at the survivors.
There will be plenty of surprises. Let's face it: who would've predicted the existence of turtles? Who would ever have imagined that an organism would essentially turn itself inside out, pulling its shoulder girdle inside its ribs to form a carapace? If turtles didn't exist, no vertebrate biologist would've suggested that anything would do that: he'd have been laughed out of town. The only real prediction you can make is that life will go on. And that it will be interesting. — Alan Weisman

True happiness lies in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them. — Marquis De Sade

Humans are what they are today because their ancestors followed a knowledge path. At every branch in the 500-million-year-old tree of vertebrate evolution, the precursors of humanity opted for brains over brawn, speed, size, or any lesser adaptation. Whenever the option of intelligent response or pre-programmed reaction presented itself, a single choice was made: Be smart. — David B. Givens

Man, whose organization is regarded as the highest, departs from the vertebrate archetype; and it is because the study of anatomy is usually commenced from, and often confined to, his structure, that a knowledge of the archetype has been so long hidden from anatomists. — Charles Lyell

The earliest signs of living things, announcing as they do a high complexity of organization, entirely exclude the hypothesis of a transmutation from lower to higher grades of being. The first fiat of Creation which went forth, doubtlessly ensured the perfect adaptation of animals to the surrounding media; and thus, whilst the geologist recognizes a beginning, he can see in the innumerable facts of the eye of the earliest crustacean, the same evidences of Omniscience as in the completion of the vertebrate form. — Roderick Murchison

I was rather unwilling to study Latin grammar. It seemed absurd to waste time analyzing, every word I came across - noun, genitive, singular, feminine - when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it - order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby. — Helen Keller

Now how about you man the fuck up, put your big girl panties on and go get your fucking ex- girlfriend back. — Karina Halle

I did my own music videos, my own TV commercials. — Helen Reddy

Yeah, but a hellbender never dies. You ever see a dead one? — Jason Jack Miller

An immune system of enormous complexity is present in all vertebrate animals. When we place a population of lymphocytes from such an animal in appropriate tissue culture fluid, and when we add an antigen, the lymphocytes will produce specific antibody molecules, in the absense of any nerve cells. I find it astonishing that the immune system embodies a degree of complexity which suggests some more or less superficial though striking analogies with human language, and that this cognitive system has evolved and functions without assistance of the brain. — Niels Kaj Jerne