I don't know where to put whales. I'm sticking them here, but I don't have any reason for it.

Splitting and gradual divergence of genera is exemplified very well and in a large variety of organisms.

The fact -- not theory -- that evolution has occurred and the Darwinian theory as to how it occurred have become so confused in popular opinion that the distinction must be stressed.

I have a debt, a loyalty to the museum; the best place for me to do what I wanted to do.

Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind

Species evolve exactly as if they were adapting as best they could to a changing world, and not at all as if they were moving toward a set goal.

The search for historical laws is, I maintain, mistaken in principle.

...the argument from absence of transitional types boils down to the striking fact that such types are always lacking unless they have been found.

It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anything or at least they are not science.

The science of systematics has long been affected by profound philosophical preconceptions, which have been all the more influential for being usually covert, even subconscious.

Almost all paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete transition is in any case unlikely.

Vietnam...war...it did something to us. Or maybe not. Maybe the bad seeds were always in me, and war gave them a dark place in which to grow.

What is to be gained if we are so intent in reaching out to the unchurched that we then unchurch the reached?

You can't stop people printing what they want to print.

Truth comes home to the mind so naturally, that when we learn it for the first time, it seems as though we did no more than recall it to our memory.

Some people travel to other dimensions in their astral bodies when they meditate.

You must begin to define yourself. You must begin to define your Black heritage.

I don't think actors ever retire, they just stop being asked to work.

My belief has always been that national defense is the most important thing we do, but we shouldn't borrow to pay for it.

Everybody knows that abstract art can be art, and most people know that they may not like it, even if they understand there's another purpose to it.

Wine is not discovered but made: it is an artifact that can be appraised that can be appraised aesthetically