Richard Dawkins

Altruism is a form of selfishness.

The selfish gene theory explains the apparent altruism in nature.

The universe is not a benevolent place; it is a series of competitive struggles.

Genes exist in a world of competing genes.

The gene is the unit of natural selection.

Life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.

Selfishness spreads in a population not because of any innate quality of selfish individuals, but because of the way in which genes replicate.

We are all genes' way of making more genes.

We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.

The illusion of design is a result of the cumulative effects of natural selection.