Stephen Jay Gould

"Nature shows no evidence of design or purpose in its operations."

"We must learn to appreciate life in all its varied and strange forms."

"Evolution is constrained by history and the limitations of available variation."

"The history of life is our history, the story of where we came from."

"We are the universe become conscious of itself."

"Evolution teaches us that all life is connected through descent."

"The future cannot be predicted from the past because chance intervenes."

"Life's complexity did not require any supernatural explanation or intervention."

"We must learn to see the world through the lens of deep time."

"Nature produces forms of astonishing variety and ingenuity."

"Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion."

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into limbs for terrestrial creatures."

"Wonderful life itself is the answer to all our yearnings."

"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'"

"Change is the only constant in the universe."

"The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."

"Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress."

"We are products of history, and must learn to cherish the imperfections."

"Nature's diversity is not orderly in any conventional sense."

"Evolution is a process, not a ladder of progress."

"The greatest scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance."

"Paleontology teaches us that most species are static for the duration of their existence."

"We must learn to embrace contingency in nature and history."

"Intelligence is not a ladder but a manifold."

"Time is the ultimate democratizer."

"Beauty lies in the details of natural complexity."

"The fossil record is the primary text of evolutionary history."

"To understand the past is to illuminate the present."

"Life's pathway is not predetermined but contingent upon countless accidents."