Richard Dawkins Quotes

My object will be, first, to show by what connections the history of the fossil bones of land animals is linked to the theory of the earth and why they have a particular importance in this respect.

Most people looking for dinosaurs are looking for beautiful skeletons.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a palaeontologist. I wanted to dig up dinosaurs.

The fossil record is incredible when it preserves things, but it's not a complete record.

If you want to become a fossil, you need to die somewhere where your bones will be rapidly buried. You then hope that the Earth moves in such a way as to bring the bones back up to the surface.

Through the study of fossils I had already been initiated into the mysteries of prehistoric creations.

Children have a great urge to learn about dinosaurs.

Certainly paleontologists have found samples of an extremely small fraction, only, of the earth's extinct species, and even for groups that are most readily preserved and found as fossils they can never expect to find more than a fraction.

A fossil is so powerful. It's moving. This is my ancestor. The naturalist is moved by the fossil... not the cross.

I can't think of any other region in the world which is such a vast source of fossils.

At school I briefly wanted to be a palaeontologist, but I was no good at chemistry and physics.

The appearance of the bones of quadrupeds, especially those of complete bodies in the strata, tells us either that the layer itself which carries them was in earlier times dry land or that dry land was at least formed in the immediate area.

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.

I got interested in palaeontology and vertebrate history - sparked by books on human evolution - then vertebrate evolution. Studying with palaeontologists kindled my interest in fieldwork.

Almost all paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete transition is in any case unlikely.

Such discoveries have led me, and other geologists, to reconsider the evidence previously derived from caves brought forward in proof of the high antiquity of Man.

I'm trying to figure out the biology of dinosaurs and what they were like as living creatures.

Fossils have richer stories to tell - about the lub-dub of dinosaur life - than we have been willing to listen to.

The impact of the magazine was very strong. As I said, it portrayed dinosaurs as part of the geological history, part of the story of life on earth. It struck that paleontology was the career for me.

For fossils to thrive, certain favorable circumstances are required. First of all, of course, remnants of life have to be there. These then need to be washed over with water as soon as possible, so that the bones are covered with a layer of sediment.

My kids and I sometimes will just sit in my office and talk about what the world was like 68 million years ago. Amanda, our oldest daughter, wanted to be a paleontologist for a long time.

I've seen many dinosaur fossils, some mounted in museums, others in the process of being extracted from their rocky matrix, and it has never occurred to me that any could be anything other than genuine.

Palaeontological research exhibits, beyond question, the phenomenon of provinces in time, as well as provinces in space.

We have fossils... We win!

Only a tiny fraction of corpses fossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water.