If I don't make it, I'll be very sad that there are things I didn't do, but I'm happy that I've done what I have.

Stephen Jay Gould

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 hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.

Stephen Jay Gould

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 start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Stephen Jay Gould

When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

Stephen Jay Gould

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 creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction.

Stephen Jay Gould

Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.

Stephen Jay Gould

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.

Stephen Jay Gould

What you see is that the most outstanding feature of life's history is a constant domination by bacteria.

Stephen Jay Gould

The proof of evolution lies in those adaptations that arise from improbable foundations.

Stephen Jay Gould

Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion.

Stephen Jay Gould

Science is an integral part of culture. It's not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It's one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.

Stephen Jay Gould

Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information. It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information processors.

Stephen Jay Gould

Look in the mirror, and don't be tempted to equate transient domination with either intrinsic superiority or prospects for extended survival.

Stephen Jay Gould

Death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.

Stephen Jay Gould

I love the wry motto of the Paleontological Society, meant both literally and figuratively, for hammers are the main tool of our trade: Frango ut patefaciam - I break in order to reveal.

Stephen Jay Gould

My own field of paleontology has strongly challenged the Darwinian premise that life's major transformations can be explained by adding up, through the immensity of geological time, the successive tiny changes produced generation after generation by natural selection.

Stephen Jay Gould

All evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence... I had to place myself amidst the variation.

Stephen Jay Gould

I think there have to be Bachs and Beethovens. We may have - there are so many more people. Musical training is available to so many more, but it may be that we've hit a right wall in terms of accessible styles and since we demand innovation as a criterion of genius, there may not be more innovative styles to be found.

Stephen Jay Gould

Life began three and a half billion years ago, necessarily about as simple as it could be, because life arose spontaneously from the organic compounds in the primeval oceans.

Stephen Jay Gould

I don't think academic writing ever was wonderful. However, science used to be much less specialized.

Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould Quotes

If I don't make it, I'll be very sad that there are things I didn't do, but I'm happy that I've done what I have.

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 hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.

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 start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

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 creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction.

Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.

What you see is that the most outstanding feature of life's history is a constant domination by bacteria.

The proof of evolution lies in those adaptations that arise from improbable foundations.

Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion.

Science is an integral part of culture. It's not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It's one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.

Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information. It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information processors.

Look in the mirror, and don't be tempted to equate transient domination with either intrinsic superiority or prospects for extended survival.

Death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.

I love the wry motto of the Paleontological Society, meant both literally and figuratively, for hammers are the main tool of our trade: Frango ut patefaciam - I break in order to reveal.

My own field of paleontology has strongly challenged the Darwinian premise that life's major transformations can be explained by adding up, through the immensity of geological time, the successive tiny changes produced generation after generation by natural selection.

All evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence... I had to place myself amidst the variation.

Life began three and a half billion years ago, necessarily about as simple as it could be, because life arose spontaneously from the organic compounds in the primeval oceans.

I don't think academic writing ever was wonderful. However, science used to be much less specialized.