Stephen Jay Gould Quotes

I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore survived to pass his genes on to the next generation.

I don't know, but I think it's going to be good.

When you say if you have faith in America, I think it's the faith in the fact that we're going to end up changing the country, because if we don't, this country's in big trouble.

We live in a gender-biased world. I know we have a lot. But I do know that this history we're making, when Hillary Clinton will accept the nomination, I think it's going to go good steps in helping this country heal from its past and grow towards its future that's more inclusive, more accepting and more realizing that every American has value and that discrimination has no place in politics, in the workplace or anywhere at all.

I think that the human race does command its own destiny and that that destiny can eventually embrace the stars.

Italy will start the future. Because in the last 20, 20 years, Italy discussed only about the past. "Oh, the past is wonderful in Italy." Look, look Palazzo Vecchio. The most beautiful place in the world, in my opinion, I think this is incredible place. But the past is not sufficient. Is not enough. We need the future. Because we are Italians. And Italy is not only a museum.

If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.

What is the special privilege of youth? It is, I think, the power of looking forward, the firm belief that the future holds something that is worth possessing, and that, therefore, one can let the present moment drop from one without regret and without fear.

What then are doing if not creating a better place together? I think, for me the key has to be, what do I want to create? What is it I want to leave behind?

By tomorrow at this time, I think you're going to have a much better idea of what crazy is. -- Ev Hillman

The future is sooner and stranger than you think.

I'm sure you think that I don't understand what you're going through, but I do. It's just that sometimes, our future is dictated by what we are, opposed to what we want.

To think that humans evolved from lower species BUT the evolutionary process somehow came to a halt and we all arrived at the finish line simultaneously is to embrace a fiction possibly more implausible than Christianity.

So I think (Obama) definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.

I think nobody would claim that random genetic drift is capable of producing adaptation, that is to say the illusion of design. Random genetic drift can't produce wings that are good at flying, or eyes that are good at seeing, or legs that are good at running. But random genetic drift probably is very important in driving evolution at the molecular genetic level.

The greatest detriment to many people's success tomorrow is their thinking today.

I think there are pluses and minuses to being simpleminded. The minus is not having any sort of vision for the future. But on the plus side, my wife and I have really been happy through all of the ups and downs.

That is the future, and it is probably nearer than we think. But our primary problem as universities is not engineering that future. We must rise above the obsession with quantity of information and speed of transmission, and recognize that the key issue for us is our ability to organize this information once it has been amassed - to assimilate it, find meaning in it, and assure its survival for use by generations to come.

I cannot but think we have much to be thankful for, and more still to hope for in the future.

Think about our dilemma on this planet. If the expansion of consciousness does not loom large in the human future, what kind of future is it going to be?

I think of the future all the time. All my life I've chased dreams of what could be. For the first time in my life, I've actually caught one. I'll give you one day at a time, Claire. But remember, I'm thousands of days ahead already.

I think that science fiction has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea.

It’s short-sighted to think ads won’t one day end up wherever humans are - even the moon.

In the treatment of the child the world foreshadows its own future and faith. All words and all thinking lead to the child, - to that vast immortality and wide sweep of infinite possibility which the child represents.

I think I may have a future as a disembodied head.