“We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, quote from The Mismeasure of Man
“Errors of reductionism and biodeterminism take over in such silly statements as “Intelligence is 60 percent genetic and 40 percent environmental.” A 60 percent (or whatever) “heritability” for intelligence means no such thing. We shall not get this issue straight until we realize that the “interactionism” we all accept does not permit such statements as “Trait x is 29 percent environmental and 71 percent genetic.” When causative factors (more than two, by the way) interact so complexly, and throughout growth, to produce an intricate adult being, we cannot, in principle, parse that being’s behavior into quantitative percentages of remote root causes. The adult being is an emergent entity who must be understood at his own level and in his own totality. The truly salient issues are malleability and flexibility, not fallacious parsing by percentages. A trait may be 90 percent heritable, yet entirely malleable.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, quote from The Mismeasure of Man
“science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programed to collect pure information.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, quote from The Mismeasure of Man
“Duke est desipere in loco [it is pleasant to act foolishly from time to time—a line from Horace].”
― Stephen Jay Gould, quote from The Mismeasure of Man
“The Mismeasure of Man treats one particular form of quantified claim about the ranking of human groups: the argument that intelligence can be meaningfully abstracted as a single number capable of ranking all people on a linear scale of intrinsic and unalterable mental worth. Fortunately—and I made my decision on purpose—this limited subject embodies the deepest (and most common) philosophical error, with the most fundamental and far-ranging social impact, for the entire troubling subject of nature and nurture, or the genetic contribution to human social organization.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, quote from The Mismeasure of Man
“self-deception as the preliminary to public deception is almost automatic. —WALTER LIPPMANN,”
― Stephen Jay Gould, quote from The Mismeasure of Man
Stephen Jay Gould
Born place: in New York City, New York, The United States
Born date September 10, 1941
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“Just because somebody smiles when he hands me a bag of shit, that doesn't mean I have to take it. I don't give a damn how friendly he is. It's what he does that matters.”
― David Morrell, quote from First Blood
“Dušo, znam da imaš posla i znam da će biti opasno, ali u što god da se danas uvališ, neće biti ni približno tako opasno po život kao ono što će se dogoditi ako mi ikad više napraviš ono što si mi radio sinoć i nakon toga zaključiš da se drugo jutro možeš izvući sa rukovanjem. Dobro?”
― Karin Slaughter, quote from Fallen
“The predominant view was that budgets should be balanced and money supplies tightened. This, as we know today, only made matters worse.”
― Timothy Snyder, quote from Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
“There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.”
― Plato, quote from Phaedo
“Whether he loved her or not didn't change how she felt about him. She loved him independent and regardless of whether he loved her.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, quote from Ice
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Flawed
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The Isle of Blood
BoundBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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