“Contingency is rich and fascinating; it embodies an exquisite tension between the power of individuals to modify history and the intelligible limits set by laws of nature. The details of individual and species's lives are not mere frills, without power to shape the large-scale course of events, but particulars that can alter entire futures, profoundly and forever.”

— Stephen Jay Gould, book Eight Little Piggies

"Eight Little Piggies", p. 77
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

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Stephen Jay Gould274

American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

Stanley Wolpert (1927–2019) American indologist

Source: Jinnah of Pakistan

“Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

As quoted in "Truth and reconciliation" at BBC Focus on Africa (January-March 2000)

“The content of a book holds the power of education and it is with this power that we can shape our future and change lives.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

Inauguration of Library of Birmingham, Jan 2013

“The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape our history.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

Source: Eight Little Piggies (1993) "Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness", p. 282

“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Volume I; Part 1; "Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook"; Section A, "Idealism and Materialism".

“Don't assume that a species is intelligent because it produces intelligent individuals.”

Jack McDevitt book Infinity Beach

Infinity Beach (2000)

“The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful effect in modifying the human figure in the course of generations”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 280
Context: The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful effect in modifying the human figure in the course of generations, and this even in its osseous structure.

“The laws of thought are natural laws with which we have no power to interfere, and which are of course not to be in any way confused with the artificial laws of a country, which are invented by men and can be altered by them. Every science is occupied in detecting and describing the natural laws which are inflexibly observed by the objects treated in the Science.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Introduction, Lesson I: Definition and Sphere of the Science.
Elementary Lessons on Logic (1870)

“Struggle of power is natural in human because with power their individuality prevails over others.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

"Humanity", Ch.IV, "Rule: Power and Order" Part I

“Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church; it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

Discussing the beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The World's Religions (1991)

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