Stephen Jay Gould Quotes About Giving

Quotes about: Giving

• We pass through this world but once.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Kindness, Helping Others, Giving

  Stephen Jay Gould (2006). “The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)”, p.30, W. W. Norton & Company

• Theory and fact are equally strong and utterly interdependent; one has no meaning without the other. We need theory to organize and interpret facts, even to know what we can or might observe. And we need facts to validate theories and give them substance.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Strong, Science, Giving

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms”, p.155, Harvard University Press

• It seems the height of antiquated hubris to claim that the universe carried on as it did for billions of years in order to form a comfortable abode for us. Chance and historical contingency give the world of life most of its glory and fascination. I sit here happy to be alive and sure that some reason must exist for "why me?" Or the earth might have been totally covered with water, and an octopus might now be telling its children why the eight-legged God of all things had made such a perfect world for cephalopods.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Children, Octopus, Eight

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas”, p.206, W. W. Norton & Company

• When we seek a textbook case for the proper operation of science, the correction of certain error offers far more promise than the establishment of probable truth. Confirmed hunches, of course, are more upbeat than discredited hypotheses. Since the worst traditions of "popular" writing falsely equate instruction with sweetness and light, our promotional literature abounds with insipid tales in the heroic mode, although tough stories of disappointment and loss give deeper insight into a methodology that the celebrated philosopher Karl Popper once labeled as "conjecture and refutation.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Disappointment, Writing, Loss

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History”, p.437, W. W. Norton & Company

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