A Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

Human life is the result of a glorious evolutionary accident.

Stephen Jay Gould

Quote Topics

Accident Evolutionary Glorious Human Human Life Life Life Is Result

Quote Author

Stephen Jay Gould
American - Scientist
September 10, 1941 - May 20, 2002

We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are.

Stephen Jay Gould

Considering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything---evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing---it was surprising how rarely people thought in evolutionary terms. It was a human blind spot. We look at the world around us as a snapshot when it was really a movie, constantly changing.

Michael Crichton

Glorious the northern lights astream; Glorious the song, when God's the theme; Glorious the thunder's roar: Glorious hosanna from the den; Glorious the catholic amen; Glorious the martyr's gore.

Christopher

We are driven by the results of the Big Bang, billions of years ago, which eventually produced life, which eventually produced human beings, and so on. But me? I'm an accident - a result - and therefore a victim.

James Hillman

In the cosmology behind psychology, there is no reason for anyone to be here or to do anything... I'am an accident - a result - and therefore a victim... if I'm only a result of past causes, then I'm a victim of those past causes.... or, if you look at it from the sociological perspective, I'm the result of upbringing, class, race, gender, social prejudices, and economics. So I'm a victim again. A result .

James Hillman

A true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the result of sudden impulse and accident than of that reason of which we so much boast.

Peter Cooper

Despite the fact that human beings think that they have escaped the evolutionary paradigm, they've done nothing of the kind, and so we should expect the belief systems that people hold to mirror the evolutionary interests that people have.

Bret Weinstein

The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.

Bertrand Russell

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.

Mary Daly

Human life is precious, sublime and meaningful. But by involvement in purely worldly pursuits, the greatness of human birth is forgotten. Without human values, life is meaningless. When there is purity in thought, word and deed, human values are practised. The unity of the three H's is essential. 'Heart, Head and Hand. ' But today this unity is absent among people, with the result that men are becoming inhuman.

Sathya Sai Baba

We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction.

Stephen Jay Gould

It so happens that certain songs becomes part of culture, and culture is a form of preserving patterns. Yes, we're Mexican, and we're proud to be, but we're also human. But like all cultures, there are retrograde elements and evolutionary elements. I think we'll chose to head towards the evolutionary ones and leave the others behind.

Ruben Isaac Albarran Ortega

The idea is that inside every human being, however unprepossessing, there is a glorious, talented, and overwhelmingly attractive personality. Nonsense. Inside each of us is a mess of unruly, primitive impulses, and these can sometimes, under the strenuous self-discipline and dedication of art, result in notable creativity.

Margaret Halsey

Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again.

Stephen Jay Gould

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have, fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.