A Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

I despair of persuading people to drop the familiar and comforting tactic of dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we might expand the framework of debates by seeking other dichotomies more appropriate than, or simply different from, the conventional divisions. All dichotomies are simplifications, but the rendition of a conflict along differing axes of several orthogonal dichotomies might provide an amplitude of proper intellectual space without forcing us to forgo our most comforting tool of thought.

Stephen Jay Gould

Quote Topics

Along Appropriate Axes Comforting Conflict Conventional Debates Despair Dichotomy Different Divisions Drop Expand Familiar Forcing Framework Instead Intellectual Might More Most Other Our People Perhaps Persuading Proper Provide Rendition Seeking Several Simply Space Tactic Than Thought Tool Us Without

Quote Author

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

Primates are hardwired for us/them dichotomies. Our brains detect them in less than 100 milliseconds.

Robert Sapolsky

Damn all false dichotomies to hell

D. A. Carson

False dichotomies are often at the heart of discord.

Deborah Tannen

I consider myself a fairly ethical individual while I do have a lot of dichotomies within me. We're all victims of our own hypocrisy at times.

T. J. Miller

Beyond the mythology, Wonder Woman gets to play with several dichotomies. It's Amazon culture versus man's world; ancient mythological times versus the contemporary world; and, of course, all the male and female issues.

Bruce Timm

Dichotomies are an inherent part of comics, aren't they? Comics are both pictures and words. They blend time and space. Many feature characters with dual identities like Bruce Wayne/Batman. Cartoonists also tend to live dichotomous lives because many of us have day jobs.

Gene Luen Yang

We apply the language that is comforting and comfortable and familiar in order to grasp that which confuses and scares us. That is the first step toward cliché and stereotype, as they're comforting devices. They reduce the confusing world to the already familiar. We're always smoothing out the bumps of actual living to turn it into narratable life.

Aleksandar Hemon

Our human situation no longer permits us to make armed dichotomies between those who are good and those who are evil, those who are right and those who are wrong. The first blow dealt to the enemy's children will sign the death warrant of our own.

Margaret Mead

I will defend the absolute value of Mozart over Miley Cyrus, of course I will, but we should be wary of false dichotomies. You do not have to choose between one or the other. You can have both. The human cultural jungle should be as varied and plural as the Amazonian rainforest. We are all richer for biodiversity. We may decide that a puma is worth more to us than a caterpillar, but surely we can agree that the habitat is all the better for being able to sustain each.

Stephen Fry

The dichotomies, the brokenness of the culture around things like the Vietnam war, and then a lot of it has to do with war and where we put our energy and money and attention. And the military industrial complex, which dominates our whole economy. Even with the vision of democracy in other places we know the dark side.

Anne Waldman

People might think that because I'm skinny and tall, I'm fragile. But I always knew I wasn't. And it's comforting to know that I can throw a proper punch if I have to.

Joan Smalls

Studying anthropology, I developed a kind of holistic view of human existence, in which the dichotomies you listed are all necessary and vital aspects of life.

Joan D. Vinge

I have often been amused by our vulgar tendency to take complex issues, with solutions at neither extreme of a continuum of possibilities, and break them into dichotomies, assigning one group to one pole and the other to an opposite end, with no acknowledgment of subtleties and intermediate positions and nearly always with moral opprobrium attached to opponents.

Stephen Jay Gould

Here are two dichotomies here. In the West it is a very physical practice, and even meditation is a practice to become productive and more at peace. In the East, you think of the deep spiritual practices as a journey of complete dissolution of the self, the ego.

Karan Bajaj

I'm pretty horrible at relationships and haven't been in many long-term ones. Leaving and moving on - returning to a familiar sense of self-reliance and autonomy - is what I know; that feeling is as comfortable and comforting as it might be for a different kind of person to stay.

Carrie Brownstein

Try seeing your world and yourself this way, eyes open to whatever is before you, mind free of dichotomies. Are you good or bad, fragile or tough, wise or foolish? Yes. And so am I.

Martha Beck

A Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors