Stephen Jay Gould Quotes

The scientists I looked up to at the beginning were not Latino. They were famous scientists of many years ago, like Madame Curie. Later, I realized that there were also, but a very few, Latino scientists. There were good ones, but very few, because there wasn't as much a tradition to be a scientist in our culture. But this is changing.

The worst thing about that kind of prejudice... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.

I think there are universal principles that we should want to understand, but that are not necessarily good for us. We could recognise universal propensities which current cultures can't fully eradicate, which we would want to eradicate if we could. Let's say, a tendency for tribal violence. Or racism.

We think that it is the best scientists working in the frontier fields of science who are best able to judge what is good and what is bad - if any - in the application of their scientific research.

If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

I also mixed David Bowie's Young Americans album in 5.1 earlier this year and it will be available very soon. Even the original stereo mixes have been re-mastered and sound amazingly good, better than ever, in fact!

I've made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I've made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I'm proud of what I've done. In fact it's been a good ride.

Surely one advantage of traveling is that, while it removes much prejudice against foreigners and their customs, it intensifies tenfold one's appreciation of the good at home, and, above all, of the quietness and purity of English domestic life.

I want people to come to my music without prejudice. I want them to get the music first. And who I am isn't that important. If they like the songs to me that's a good thing.

A lot of people feel that the realm of poetry and the realm of the lyric is personal feeling and should rise above politics, which, in fact, good poetry has never done.

FOR a long time the conviction has been dimly felt in the community that, without prejudice to existing institutions, the legal day of weekly rest might be employed to advantage for purposes affecting the general good.

Even when EPA subjects its science to peer review, the agency often stacks the deck of supposedly independent advisory panels by including members who are EPA grant recipients.

If you read a lot of Chinese literature, there has always been very strong women figures - warriors, swordswomen - who defended honor and loyalty with the men. So, it's not new to our culture - it's always been very much a part of it. It's good that now the Western audience would have a different image of the Chinese women.

Under these conditions it is not astonishing that learning was highly prized; in fact, my parents made sacrifices to be able to give their children a good education.

It ain't easy to break out of a mold, but if you do your work, people will ultimately see what you're capable of. Too often, people find it easier to make assumptions and stick with what they believe. They put you in a place and it makes their job easier. The good people constantly search for something different.

Our everyday cares, making a living, the crazy rat race of life, often make us forget the value of a good deed. Thus, the goodness that exists within each and every one of us is covered with layer upon layer of indifference and unawareness. In fact, we almost have to be reminded of the fact that goodness is there inside us.

My parents find me hilarious. They don't pull me up for anything because I'm a good daughter. I stay at home, don't party too much, people don't talk about my affairs or that I am unprofessional. In fact, people tell my parents that I'm so well-brought up. Yes, I tend to shoot my mouth off, but they don't pull me up for that.

The caricature of science is that we hold tight to the theories we have, and shun challenges to them. That's just not true. In fact, we hold our highest rewards for those scientists who can prove others wrong. And by the way, they are famous in their own lifetimes. We don't wait until they're dead.

Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.

Being a Southern person and a blonde, it's not a good combination. Immediately, when people meet you, they think of you as not being smart.

On many days my primary artistic struggle is, in fact, photography because it is harder to do good work with that. I see myself as an observer of the world who has a strong drive to testify, which I can do because I have the privilege of living in New York with enough food to eat and shelter.

Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things. But it takes religion to make good people do bad things.

Things are not so bad in that county as represented by rumor, and, in fact, from affidavits I have no doubt your Excellency has been deceived by the exaggerated statements of designing or half crazy men. I have found there is no cause of alarm on account of the Mormons; they are not to be feared; they are very much alarmed.

A great paradox laid at the heart of the Soviet State. While rapid scientific progress was needed on a mass scale to advance the cost of a Utopian socialist nation, the Soviet regime didn't want to grant the scientific community inside Russia any intellectual freedom or autonomy, fearing that it might end up undermining the science of Marxism,

Many of Israel's leaders are inundated with extreme ideology that is centered around a deep sense of victimhood. Ghosts from the past blind their eyes from seeing that anyone else could suffer from discrimination in our modern state. In fact, the definition of "traitor" nowadays is "peacenik" or even leftist. The Jewish values that inspired Israel's Declaration of Independence are too often less relevant to government policy than the dead sea scrolls.