Stephen Jay Gould Quote

Very little comes easily to our poor, benighted species (the first creature, after all, to experiment with the novel evolutionary inventions of self-conscious philosophy and art). Even the most obvious, accurate, and natural style of thinking or drawing must be regulated by history and won by struggle. Solutions must therefore arise within a social context and record the complex interactions of mind and environment that define the possibility of human improvement.

"Seeing Eye to Eye, Through a Glass Clearly", p. 72 - Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)