It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.

Bill Bryson
About This Quote

This is a chilling thought that we may be the living universe’s greatest accomplishment and its worst nightmare. If we were, then we would know everything there is to know about ourselves. Our greatest achievement would be our worst nightmare. In other words, our greatest achievement would be to find out there was nothing behind us, nothing before us, nothing above us, and nothing below us. We would be the universe’s worst nightmare because if we were there would be no more universe to destroy.

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More Quotes By Bill Bryson
  1. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only...
  2. If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly...
  3. As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?
  4. I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.
  5. Thoreau was an idiot.
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