The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.

—Stephen Jay Gould

learning knowledge certainty science arrogance centrality

About Stephen Jay Gould

Portrait of Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould ( GOOLD; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, historian of science, and one of the most widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American...

More quotations from Stephen Jay Gould

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best—and therefore never scrutinize or question.

—Stephen Jay Gould

We pass through this world but once.

—Stephen Jay Gould

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

—Stephen Jay Gould

It is not every question that deserves an answer.

—Stephen Jay Gould

Human consciousness arose but a minute before midnight on the geological clock. Yet we mayflies try to bend an ancient world to our purposes, ignorant perhaps of the messages buried in its long history. Let us hope that we are still in the early morning of our April day.

—Stephen Jay Gould

More quotations tagged with “arrogance”

When I eventually met Mr. Right I had no idea that his first name was Always.

right compromise arrogance

When you're young, you always think you'll meet all sorts of wonderful people, that drifting apart and losing friends is natural. You don't worry, at first, about the friends you leave behind. But as you get older, it gets harder to build friendships. Too many defenses, too little opportunity. You get busy. And by the time you realize that you've lost the dearest best friend you've ever had, years have gone by and you're mature enough to be embarrassed by your attitude and, frankly, by your arrogance.

—Kate Jacobs in The Friday Night Knitting Club

friendship friends youth opportunity busyness attitude arrogance defense

Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.

—Sydney J. Harris

knowledge age arrogance

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

—Samuel Butler

ignorance character vanity price arrogance

History

21 Feb 2015 Added