Stephen Jay Gould
“Human consciousness arose but a minute before midnight of the cosmic day; yet we think ourselves its culmination.”
“Theories are nets; only he who casts will catch.”
“We are a glorious accident of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected product of evolutionary principles.”
“Nothing matches the holiness and stillness of nature before sunrise—hold on to that reverence for life.”
“Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information; it is a creative human activity.”
“Facts do not speak for themselves; they are read in the light of theory.”
“We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of all possible universes.”
“The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best—and therefore never scrutinize or question.”