“Later . . . the sports jacket became a kind of signature uniform for the museum scientist, complete with leather elbow patches. It indicated an endearing otherworldliness. Too much smartness might betray the wrong priorities, and an inadequate grasp of carabids.” — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“Every new discovery about the genome is consistent with evolution having happened. Whether we find it appealing or not is another question, but personally… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“Without death there is little innovation. Extinction - death of a species - is part and parcel of evolutionary change. In the absence of… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“But, for now, I retreated back down the little hidden staircase into the familiar world of the basement of the Natural History Museum, and… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
The great proliferation of museums in the nineteenth century was a product of the marriage of the exhibition as a way of awakening intelligent… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“Whether we find it appealing or not is another question, but personally I like being fourth cousin to a mushroom and having a bonobo… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“There is no final truth in palaeontology. Every new observer brings something of his or her own: a new technique, a new intelligence, even… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
I believe profoundly in the importance of museums; I would go as far as to say that you can judge a society by the… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“Mankind is nothing more than a parasitic tick gorging himself on temporary plenty while the seas are low and the climate is clement. But… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“I attempted in vain to calculate the size of the holdings on the shelves, floor on floor, only to boggle hopelessly, baffled by bibliographic… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
I wonder if we are seeing a return to the object in the science-based museum. Since any visitor can go to a film like… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
A life accumulates a collection: of people, work and perplexities. We are all our own curators. — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“When I meet some of my commuting acquaintances on the 6.21 home to Henley-on-Thames they occasionally enquire what I have done that day. I… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“Trilobites survived for a total of three hundred million years, almost the whole duration of the Palaeozoic era: who are we johnny-come-latelies to label… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“There might be symphonies of perfume, Mozarts of musk. Novelists might construct nasal narratives, versifiers sonnets of scent. Sculpture would entail subtleties of shape… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
“In the Spirit Building there are thousands upon thousands of jars containing fish or snake, octopus or lobster, pickled to the life. ... As… — Richard Fortey Copy Share Image
