Best Stephen Jay Gould Quotations
- It has become, in my view, a bit too trendy to regard the acceptance of death as something tantamount to intrinsic dignity. Of course I… Acceptance
- A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right. Attain
- I am not, personally, a believer or a religious man in any sense of institutional commitment or practice. But I have a great respect for… All
- Everything comes to us in fifteen-second sound bites and photo opportunities. All possibility for ambiguity - the most precious trait of any adequate analysis -… Adequate
- We live in a profoundly nonintellectual culture, made all the worse by a passive hedonism abetted by the spread of wealth and its dissipation into… Abetted
- The history of life is a tale of decimation and later stabilization of few surviving anatomies, not a story of steady expansion and progress. Anatomies
- The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as a trade secret of Paleontology. Evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data… Adorn
- Always be suspicious of conclusions that reinforce uncritical hope and follow comforting traditions of Western thought. Comforting
- Even the standard example of ancient nonsense - the debate about angels on pinheads - makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing… Ancient
- The spirit of Plato dies hard. We have been unable to escape the philosophical tradition that what we can see and measure in the world… Been
- Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to… Deeper
- When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown. Follow
- We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a… Accidents
- In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might… Apples
- Look in the mirror, and don't be tempted to equate transient domination with either intrinsic superiority or prospects for extended survival. Domination
- The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions… All
- The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question. Attention
- Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty. Blinding
- Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion. Branching
- What you see is that the most outstanding feature of life's history is a constant domination by bacteria. Bacteria
- With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades, we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a prickly… Beethoven
- A lot of scientists hate writing. Most scientists love being in the lab and doing the work and when the work is done, they are… Finished
- The proof of evolution lies in those adaptations that arise from improbable foundations. Adaptation
- At a minimum, in explaining evolutionary pathways through time, the constraints imposed by history rise to equal prominence with the immediate advantages of adaptation. Adaptation
- I'm not a great deductive thinker, but I will admit to having competence in a very wide range of things - not being afraid to… Admit
More Ways to Read Stephen Jay Gould Quotes
- Best Stephen Jay Gould Quotes (Stephen Jay Gould Quotes)
- Best Stephen Jay Gould Sayings (Stephen Jay Gould Quotes)
- Best Stephen Jay Gould Words (Stephen Jay Gould Quotes)
- Best Stephen Jay Gould Lines (Stephen Jay Gould Quotes)
- Best Stephen Jay Gould Thoughts (Stephen Jay Gould Quotes)