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The fundamental division of forms of life on Earth is not that between plants and animals, as is commonly assumed, but between prokaryotes—organisms composed of cells with no nucleus, that is, bacteria—and eukaryotes—all other life forms.

— Lynn Margulis Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors (1986)

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More quotes by Lynn Margulis

Identity is not an object; it is a process with addresses for all the different directions and dimensions in which it moves, and so it cannot so easily be fixed with a single number.

Why does everybody agree that atmospheric oxygen... comes from life, but no one speaks about the other gases coming from life?

Not only did life originate on earth very early in its history as a planet, but for the first two billion years, Earth was inhabited solely by bacteria.

Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors (1986)

[The smallest bacterium] is so much more like people than Stanley Miller’s mixtures of chemicals, because it already has these system properties. So to go from a bacterium to people is less of a step than to go from a mixture of amino acids to that bacterium.

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