# Quote — Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life

> [C]ontingency is a thing unto itself, not the titration of determinism by randomness.

- Author: [Stephen Jay Gould](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould.md)
- Book: [Wonderful Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life.md)
- Page: 51
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Wonderful_Life_(1989)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life/c-ontingency-is-a-thing

## More from this book

> An old paleontological in joke proclaims that mammalian evolution is a tale told by teeth mating to produce slightly altered descendant teeth.

p. 60 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life/an-old-paleontological.md)

> The beauty of nature lies in detail; the message, in generality.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life/the-beauty-of-nature.md)

> The divine tape player holds a million scenarios, each perfectly sensible. Little quirks at the outset, occurring for no particular reason, unleash cascades of consequences that make a particular future seem inevitable in retrospect. But the slightest early nudge contacts a different groove, and history veers into another plausible channel, diverging continually from its original pathway. The end results are so different, the initial perturbation so apparently trivial.

p. 320 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life/the-divine-tape.md)