Stephen Jay Gould Quotes

There is a grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful are being evolved

The diversity of life is so stimulating for me.

Publicly and among themselves biologists rightly celebrate the diversity of life on Earth... At the end of the day, however, their confession is heard by no one: they work with a single scientific sample-life on Earth.

Known as the biosphere to scientists and as the creation to theologians, all of life together consists of a membrane around earth so thin that it cannot be seen edgewise from a satellite yet so prodigiously diverse that only a tiny fraction of species have been discovered and named.

No form of love is wrong, so long as it is love, and you yourself honour what you are doing. Love has an extraordinary variety of forms! And that is all that there is in life, it seems to me.

We must face life as it is and understand that diversity is its most essential feature.

Some claim evolution is just a theory. As if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened. Accepting our kinship with all life on Earth is not only solid science. In my view, it’s also a soaring spiritual experience.

Economic localization is the key to sustaining biological and cultural diversity - to sustaining life itself. The sooner we shift towards the local, the sooner we will begin healing our planet, our communities and ourselves.

From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the grouping of stars in constellations.

If you are dealing with life from a low-level sensibility, the Internet can be a tool for manifesting that. But if you're dealing with life from the highest sensibility, it can also be your tool for manifesting that. The simple reason is that it doesn't cost money.

True wisdom consists in respecting the simple things we do

Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain. Everybody. Everybody has their story to tell.

The Simple Life is not a simple life.

Evolution is a very, very important idea. It is the explanation for all of life - a stunningly simple, yet powerful explanation. If you think about it, before Darwin, we hadn't the foggiest idea of how we came into being. Now we do. It's still such an exciting idea that it is well worth everybody understanding it.

The laws of biology are written in the language of diversity.

All my life I have fought against prejudice and intolerance.

Life is a rainbow which also includes black.

It's a simple liberating reality - the best things in life are mine for the choosing.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.

There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice.

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.

Nature has gifted this rich biological diversity to us. We will not allow it to become the monopoly of a handful of corporations. We will keep it as the basis of our wealth and our sustenance.

Differences can be strength rather than a handicap.

What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions; life is plurality, death is uniformity.