“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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“I hate to say it, but it can’t be much of a dark conspiracy if a trio of first-year shlubs like us have worked it all out.”
― G. Norman Lippert, quote from James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing
“So maybe the difference isn't language. Maybe it's this: animals do neither good nor evil. They do as they must do. We may call what they do harmful or useful, but good and evil belong to us, who chose to choose what we do. The dragons are dangerous, yes. They can do harm, yes. But they're not evil. They're beneath our morality, if you will, like any animal. Or beyond it. They have nothing to do with it.
We must choose and choose again. The animals need only be and do. We're yoked, and they're free. So to be with an animal is to know a little freedom...”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Other Wind
“No hay excusa para la maldad; pero el que es malo, si lo sabe, tiene algún mérito; el vicio más irreparable es el de hacer el mal por tontería.”
― Charles Baudelaire, quote from Paris Spleen
“When asked to give his opinion as to why airpower was stillborn in the U.S., with little funding or interest coming from the navy or army, he replied: “Conservatism. . . . You see, the army and the navy are the oldest institutions we have. They place everything on precedent. You can’t do that in the air business. You have got to look ahead.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flyboys: A True Story of Courage
“Herkes bilsin, çok mutlu bir hayat yaşadım.”
― Orhan Pamuk, quote from The Museum of Innocence
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A Gate of Night
The Song of DavidBookQuoters 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.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
