Niles Eldredge Quotes

The theory of punctuated equilibrium, proposed by Niles Eldredge and myself, is not, as so often misunderstood, a radical claim for truly sudden change, but a recognition that ordinary processes of speciation, properly conceived as glacially slow by the standard of our own life-span, do not resolve into geological time as long sequences of insensibly graded intermediates (the traditional, or gradualistic, view), but as geologically "sudden" origins at single bedding planes. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way. ~ Niles Eldredge

I published that theory [of speciational evolution] in a 1954 paper ... and I clearly related it to paleontology. Darwin argued that the fossil record is very incomplete because some species fossilize better than others ... I noted that you are never going to find evidence of a small local population that changed very rapidly in the fossil record ... Gould was my course assistant at Harvard where I presented this theory again and again for three years. So he knew it thoroughly. So did Eldredge. In fact, in his 1971 paper Eldredge credited me with it. But that was lost over time. ~ Ernst W. Mayr

And it has been the paleontologist- my own breed-who have been most responsible for letting ideas dominate reality: ... We paleontologist have said that the history of life supports that interpretation [gradual adaptive change], all the while knowing that it does not. ~ Niles Eldredge

Darwin's prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record. ~ Niles Eldredge

Paleontologist Niles Eldredge, a prominent evolutionist, said: 'The doubt that has infiltrated the previous, smugly confident certitude of evolutionary biology's last twenty years has inflamed passions.' He spoke of the 'lack of total agreement even within the warring camps,' and added, 'things really are in an uproar these days ... Sometimes it seems as though there are as many variations on each [evolutionary] theme as there are individual biologists.' ~ Niles Eldredge

Eve is a life giver; she is Adam's ally. It is to both of them that the charter for adventure is given. It will take both of them to sustain life. And they will both need to fight together. ~ John Eldredge

If strangers and strange sights can shake the world of children, it takes the people they know and love best to pull it out from under them like a chair. ~ John Eldredge

The vast desire and capacity a woman has for intimate relationships tells us of God's vast desire and capacity for intimate relationships. In fact, this may be The most important thing we ever learn about God
the He yearns for relationship with us. "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God" (John 17:3). The whole story of the Bible is a love story between God and His people. He yearns for us. He cares. He has a tender heart. ~ Stasi Eldredge

He is the playfulness of creation, scandal and utter goodness, the generosity of the ocean and the ferocity of a thunderstorm; he is cunning as a snake and gentle as a whisper; the gladness of sunshine and the humility of a thirty-mile walk by foot on a dirt road. ~ John Eldredge

Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of man. ~ John Eldredge

The great divide lies between men as lovers and men as consumers. Does he seek her out, long for her, because really he yearns for her to meet some need in his life - a need for validation (she makes him feel like a man), or mercy, or simply sexual gratification? That man is a Consumer, as my friend Craig calls him. The lover, on the other hand, wants to fight for her - he wants to protect her, make her life better, wants to fill her heart in every way he can. ~ John Eldredge

Made in the image of a perfect relationship, we are relational to the core of our beings and filled with a desire for transcendent purpose. We long to be an irreplaceable part of a shared adventure. ~ John Eldredge

The point is the love story. We live in a love story in the midst of war. ~ John Eldredge

(Satan's) first goal, of course, is to make sure we never meet the Prince who is Jesus of Nazareth or experience a taste of the Great Ball, But once we have, Satan's second and lifelong purpose with each of us is to make sure we never know who we really are; indeed, to keep us living the life of a cellar maid rather than a princess. Even though we who are believers have tasted the Ball and the love of the Prince in beginning ways, the voices of the stepsisters continue to speak to us in tones varying from whispers to shouts, and like Cinderella, each of us has our own years as a "cellar maid" that the enemy can whisper to us about, causing us to wonder if this isn't who we really are after all. ~ John Eldredge

It was men who stopped slavery. It was men who ran up the stairs in the Twin Towers to rescue people. It was men who gave up their seats on the lifeboats of the Titanic. Men are made to take risks and live passionately on behalf of others. ~ John Eldredge

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. 'It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]' (Gen. 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is 'notoriously difficult to translate.' The various attempts we have in English are "helper" or "companion" or the notorious "help meet." Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat ... disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing "One day I shall be a help meet?" Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it "sustainer beside him"
The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately. ~ Stasi Eldredge

Darkness fell, revealing a sparkling night sky so beautiful that we decided to sleep out under the stars. At gray dawn, Phyllis woke me with an urgent voice. "Bill, Bill," she said, "when I woke up I saw this huge boulder beside me, but it wasn't there last night. Look! Look!" she said and pointed next to her. It was the huge buffalo bull! He had come back during the night and lay down beside us to sleep. I was awestruck. I felt so honored, so grateful, so loved. I loved that buffalo with all my heart and soul. I felt like he knew it, and that was why he had come back to sleep with us.

But maybe there's a different reason. Judith Niles, a wise spiritual friend of mine recently told me that the spontaneous melody is "the voice of the soul." The minute she said it I knew she was right. Now I feel sure that the creatures responded to "the voice of the soul" amplified through my body. When we human beings finally get it together the natural world is going to respond to us in more wonderful ways than we can ever begin to imagine. ~ William "Billy" Packer

There is something else I am after, out here in the wild. I am searching for an even more elusive prey ... something that can only be found through the help of wilderness. I am looking for my heart. ~ John Eldredge

In the spacious love of God, our souls can lie down and rest. This love from him is not something we must struggle for, earn, or fear to lose. It is bestowed. He has bestowed it upon us. He has chosen us. And nothing can separate us from his love. Not even we, ourselves. We are made for such a love. Our hearts yearn to be loved intimately, personally, and yes, romantically. We are created to be the object of desire and affection of one who is totally and completely in love with us. And we are. ~ John Eldredge

The chief difficulty is that God demands of us that we live by faith: faith in God, God's sovereignty over the future, God's sufficiency for the present; while, on the other hand, the various other gods whom we can serve appeal to us in terms of the things which we can see and the forces which we can calculate. The choice between the life of faith and the life of sight is a choice between a God whom only faith can apprehend and gods whom one has only to see to understand. ~ Daniel Thambyrajah Niles

Samson becomes a great and terrible warrior when, and only when, the Spirit of God comes upon him. The rest of the time he's just short of an idiot. What does this story tell us about the God whose Spirit this is? ~ John Eldredge

Paul turned her to face him. I see a breathtaking woman scared to death to see how beautiful she actually is, a woman refusing to live because she has spent her entire life feeling inadequate in her appearance, a woman who has nothing to be ashamed of. ~ Abby Niles

Most people don't even try to learn the ways of the kingdom; they just go about their days with a practical agnosticism, hoping things work out, tossing up prayers like they hope to score on a Jesus lottery ticket. ~ John Eldredge

Fear in its most wicked, powerful form cripples our souls and warps the very fabric of our true hearts. ~ Stasi Eldredge

To tell a tale so great as to tear the soul inside out
Sara Niles, Torn From the Inside Out ~ Sara Niles

A true friend loves you when you are being kind and when you are PMS-ing all over the place. They may not love what you are doing, or the dragon you are manifesting, but they love you. They know who the true you is, and even in the midst of your living as an imposter to your very self, a friend calls you up and out. A friend sees who you are meant to be and beckons you to rise to the higher version of yourself. ~ Stasi Eldredge

'Wild at Heart' simply came out of my journey as a man and then my work with men. ~ John Eldredge

If you had permission to do what you really want to do, what would you do? ~ John Eldredge

Nothing is out of reach for Jesus. ~ Stasi Eldredge

It takes courage to seek God, and courage to wait for His reply. ~ John Eldredge

Sometimes the idea of living as a hermit appeals to all of us. No demands, no needs, no pain, no disappointments. But that is because we have been hurt, are worn out. ~ John Eldredge

Should the king in exile pretend he is happy there?

Should he not seek his own country?

His miseries are his ally; they urge him on. Let them grow, if need be. But do not forsake the secret of life; do not despise those kingly desires. We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. Whatever we might gain – money, position, the approval of others, or just absence of the discontent self – it's not worth it. ~ John Eldredge

In your life you are William Wallace - who else could be? There is no other man who can replace you in your life, in the arena you've been called to. If you leave your place in the line, it will remain empty. No one else can be who you are meant to be. You are the hero in your story. Not a bit player, not an extra, but the main man. ~ John Eldredge

And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing. ~ Mary Oliver

It is the thoughts and intents of the heart that shape a person's life. ~ John Eldredge

Progress or lack of it, can only be judged by a measuring rod, and if the rod is placed low enough the standard will never threaten you ~ Sara Niles

What if you have a genuine and captivating beauty that is marred only by your striving? ~ Stasi Eldredge

The true story of every person in this world is not the story you see, the external story. The true story of each person is the journey of his or her heart. ~ John Eldredge

This is why the "apply some principles" approach to marriage improvement doesn't work. So long as we choose to turn a blind eye to how we are fallen as men or women, and to the unique style of relating that we have forged out of our sin and brokenness, we will continue to do damage to our marriages. ~ John Eldredge

Our whole journey into authentic masculinity centers around those cool-of-the-day talks with God. Simple questions change hassles to adventures; the events of our lives become opportunities for initiation. ~ John Eldredge

The true test of a man, the beginning of his redemption, actually starts when he can no longer rely on what he's used all his life. The real journey begins when the false self fails. ~ John Eldredge

Being beautiful is a quality of spirit recognized primarily in a woman whose soul is at rest because she believes her God when he calls her lovely. ~ Stasi Eldredge

Most of our addictions [shopping, food, bad relationships] as women flare up when we feel that we are not loved or sought after. ~ John Eldredge

Remember, misogyny is hatred. Whether we are aware of it or not, when we hate other girls, we are hating ourselves, cooperating with the Enemy, and perpetuating grave damage. To hate, Jesus said, is to murder. ~ Stasi Eldredge

Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed and even more rarely healed, every man carries a wound. And the wound is nearly always given by his father. ~ John Eldredge