A Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

I strongly reject any conceptual scheme that places our options on a line, and holds that the only alternative to a pair of extreme positions lies somewhere between them. More fruitful perspectives often require that we step off the line to a site outside the dichotomy.

Stephen Jay Gould

Quote Topics

Alternative Any Between Conceptual Dichotomy Extreme Fruitful Holds Lies Line More Off Often Only Options Our Outside Pair Perspectives Places Positions Reject Require Scheme Site Somewhere Step Strongly Them

Quote Author

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

The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies "out there" in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition.

Stephen Jay Gould

Lies 1: There is only the present and nothing to remember. Lies 2: Time is a straight line. Lies 3: The difference between the past and the futures is that one has happened while the other has not. Lies 4: We can only be in one place at a time. Lies 5: Any proposition that contains the word 'finite' (the world, the universe, experience, ourselves...) Lies 6: Reality as something which can be agreed upon. Lies 7: Reality is truth.

Jeanette Winterson

But actually time isn't a straight line. It doesn't ave a shape. In all senses of the term, it doesn't have any form. But since we can't picture something without form in our minds, for the sake of convenience we understand it as a straight line. At this point, humans are the only ones who can make that sort of conceptual substitution.

Haruki Murakami

When you are in the line of your duty, it is like standing in front of a line of posts, and every post is in line. But step one step aside, and every post looks as though it were not quite in line. The farther you get away from that straight line, the more crooked the posts will appear. It is the straight and narrow path of duty that will lead you and me back to the presence of God.

Heber J. Grant

I strongly endorse Donald Trump because we need a president that will put our veterans in front of the line rather than watch them die while in line.

Ryan Zinke

The picket line is the best place to train organizers. One day on the picket line is where a man makes his commitment. The longer on the picket line, the stronger the commitment. A lot of workers think they make their commitment by walking off the job when nobody sees them. But you get a guy to walk off the field when his boss is watching and, in front of the other guys, throw down his tools and march right to the picket line, that is the guy who makes our strike. The picket line is a beautiful thing because it makes a man more human.

Cesar Chavez

Our conversion comes step by step, line upon line. We first build a foundation of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Neil L. Andersen

To view any individual as being independent of relationality is like viewing a point outside of a line, a line outside of a figure, a figure outside of a body.

David Novak

You are all mates off the pitch, but on it, you are all competing for places. I think that only makes a healthier squad - more players fighting for positions can only mean everyone has got to step their game up.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.

Helen Keller

I've got evil in me as much as anyone, some desires that scare me. Even if I don't give in to them, just having them scares the living bejesus out of me sometimes. I'm no saint, the way you kid about. But I've always walked the line, walked that goddamned line. It's a mean mother of a line, straight and narrow, sharp as a razor, cuts right into you when you walk it long enough. You're always bleeding on that line, and sometimes you wonder why you don't just step off and walk in the cool grass.

Dean Koontz

I thought Clint Eastwood was cool in all the western movies, but I'm not gonna drive somewhere he's at and stand in line to see him. I told Missy, my wife, 'The only person I'd stand in line for is God Almighty. You made the universe? All right, I'll get in line!'

Jase Robertson

There is a fine line I have to walk throughout the writing process in a novel. It is this line between drama and melodrama, and it is this line between evoking genuine emotional power and being manipulative.

Nicholas Sparks

We like to be punks. We like to still be kind of edgy and if being edgy means you might teeter on that line of being inappropriate, I'm still willing to teeter on that line, even at my age. But some of them go over that line and you've gotta draw that line somewhere.

Milo Aukerman

Chimpanzees, more than any other living creature, have helped us to understand that there is no sharp line between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. It's a very blurry line, and it's getting more blurry all the time.