Stephen Jay Gould Quotes

When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

Stephen Jay Gould

• Judgment
• Hopes
• Manipulation

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Quotes to Explore

• We are not angels, we are merely sophisticated apes. Yet we feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, craving transcendence and all the time trying to spread our wings and fly off, and it's really a very odd predicament to be in, if you think about it.

  

  Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
  • Time
  • Trying
  • Fly

• I would love a family. I'm at the age where the wish for a child gets stronger. But who knows.

  

  Cameron Diaz
  • Family
  • Wish
  • Child

• That nature does not care, one way or the other, is the true abyss. That only man cares, in his finitude facing nothing but death, alone with his contingency and the objective meaninglessness of his projecting meanings, is a truly unprecedented situation.

  

  Hans Jonas
  • True
  • Nature
  • Death

• We need to send Barack Obama back to Chicago. I'd like to send him back to Kenya, back to Indonesia. We have to unmask this man. This is a man that seeks to destroy all concept of God. And I will tell you what, this is classical Marxist philosophy.

  

  Rafael Cruz
  • God
  • Man
  • Philosophy

• Political and social change is always a stagger-step process. One step forward, two steps back. They want you to give up.

  

  Hal Sparks
  • Up
  • Political
  • Change

• To inform, and, therefore to reconnoitre, this is the first and constant duty of the advanced guard.

  

  Ferdinand Foch

• If poetry is like an orgasm, an academic can be likened to someone who studies the passion-stains on the bedsheets.

  

  Irving Layton
  • Passion
  • Poetry

• You would think that pot had some kind of power; I mean come on, it’s a plant, not a reason for living. Controlled by a plant, how hilarious. A plant! A fucking plant!

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Power
  • Plant
  • Hilarious

• Paranormal fiction offers authors - and readers - the chance to answer the question, 'What if?' All the different ways that question can be answered make for extremely entertaining reading.

  

  Jeaniene Frost
  • Different
  • Reading
  • Question

• 'No Burden' is not necessarily ferocious.

  

  Lucy Dacus

• Much like dystopian and post-apocalyptic books are a way to explore the worst-case scenarios lurking around the corner, fantasy can serve as a wonderful tool for showing kids that they have an inherent power in them to create change, both in themselves and in their community.

  

  Alexandra Bracken
  • Kids
  • Power
  • Community

• Congress suffers a great deal of criticism for its partisan acrimony. But while we may disagree politically, and air our opposition in this chamber, it is the conversation behind the scenes that cements and defines our relationships.

  

  Kay Bailey Hutchison
  • Great
  • May
  • Air

• I have nothing but respect for the Lakers. So many of their legends shaped who I am as a person and player.

  

  Bill Walton
  • Respect
  • Player

• The reality is that people know my character, and they know my service.

  

  Joe Garcia
  • People
  • Character
  • Reality

• A lot of my characters are underdogs or sad or lonely, but I had a comfortable, golden sort of childhood.

  

  Anthony Browne
  • Childhood
  • Sad
  • Lonely

• I don't think that evolution is supremely important because it is my specialty; it is my specialty because I think it is supremely important.

  

  George Gaylord Simpson
  • Important

• Part of my plan was not only to introduce all useful animals that I possibly could into this part of Australia, but also the most valuable plants of every description.

  

  George Grey

• Sheep run to the slaughterhouse, silent and hopeless, but at least sheep never vote for the butcher who kills them or the people who devour them. More beastly than any beast, more sheepish than any sheep, the voter names his own executioner and chooses his own devourer, and for this precious "right" a revolution was fought.

  

  Octave Mirbeau
  • People
  • Revolution
  • Silent

• There were four million people in the American Colonies and we had Jefferson and Franklin. Now we have over 200 million and the two top guys are Clinton and Dole. What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong.

  

  Mort Sahl
  • People
  • Millions
  • Clinton

• Man is not distinguished from the animals by a special kind of soul, or by any peculiar and exclusive psychic function, but only by a higher degree of psychic activity, a superior stage of development.

  

  Ernst Haeckel
  • Development
  • Animals
  • Activity

• Media manipulation in the U.S. today is more efficient than it was in Nazi Germany, because here we have the pretense that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth.

  

  Mark Crispin Miller
  • People
  • Truth
  • Today

• Clear therefore thy head, and rally, and manage thy thoughts rightly, and thou wilt save time, and see and do thy business well; for thy judgment will be distinct, thy mind free, and the faculties strong and regular.

  

  William Penn
  • Mind
  • Strong
  • Judgment

• Problems that seem under control through manipulation tend to reappear somewhere else, but with greater severity than they were before.

  

  Andreas Moritz
  • Control
  • Problems
  • Manipulation

• When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

  

  Stephen Jay Gould
  • Judgment
  • Hopes
  • Manipulation