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"When I realized, in 1978, that Lucy did represent a new species of human ancestor, and that I had an opportunity to name this new species, I realized this was a revolutionary step in understanding human origins."
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"The window of opportunity is always open, just you have to find it."
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Personal Development

"Where ignorance prevails, there an opportunity exists but the possessor of ignorance shall always be ignorant of opportunities."
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Personal Development

"He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner."
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Personal Development

"Today is the day you've been waiting for."
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Personal Development

"Opportunity is always coming but never knocks on the door. You have to get up and meet him."
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Personal Development

"Unless you have prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you just in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it."
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Personal Development

"You must explore the timeless opportunities in life."
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Personal Development

"It was so strange, the way that life moved forward: the twists and the dead ends, the sudden opportunities. She supposed if you could predict or foresee everything that was going to happen, you'd lose the motivation to go through it all. The promise was always in the possibility."
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Personal Development

"There will never be another day such as this one, with all the variables of life combining in such a way to form this opportunity. So don't let it go, grab it."
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Personal Development

"Because I was successful over the years, I never had the opportunity to do the stuff I really wanted."
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Personal Development
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"And what I wanted to do was, I wanted to explore problems and areas where we didn't have answers. In fact, where we didn't even know the right questions to ask."
Answers

"There have been some friendships lost over this. That's the most difficult for me. I find it very uncomfortable to know that I was at one time close friends with someone, and because of jealousies and misunderstandings and so on, these friendships have dissolved."
Time

"But it really wasn't until three to four years later, when we had an opportunity in the lab to make very detailed observations, and comparisons with other fossil discoveries, that we realized she was a new species of human ancestor."
Opportunity

"Normally, we are happy to find a fragment of jaw, a few isolated teeth, a bit of an arm, a bit of a skull. But to find associated body parts is extremely rare."
Body

"When the first fossils began to be found in eastern Africa, in the late 1950s, I thought, what a wonderful marriage this was, biology and anthropology. I was around 16 years old when I made this particular choice of academic pursuit."
Marriage

"When I realized, in 1978, that Lucy did represent a new species of human ancestor, and that I had an opportunity to name this new species, I realized this was a revolutionary step in understanding human origins."
Opportunity

"My real father died when I was two years old, so I never knew him. He was a barber in Chicago."
Father

"I realized immediately that this was a terribly important discovery, but I didn't realize how important it would be until we had spent a lot of time in the laboratory studying it."
Time

"In our case, finding a Lucy is unique. No one will ever find another Lucy. You can't order one from a biological supply house. It's a unique discovery, a unique specimen."
Discovery

"But what really excited me was the idea that humans had a tremendous pre-history that went back millions of years. I wanted to go to Africa to find some of these creatures."
Idea
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