Earth Quotes

“Temptation is just the feeling that you're the most independent person on planet Earth. That you know everything. That's something that we all go through as a kid. Now, this lifestyle that I'm in, the same thing exists! But it's 10 times worse, because everything is at my disposal. When you're in the limelight, you can get anything you want.”

“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more /the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort /to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires /and expires, too soon, too soon /before life itself”

“To modify the conditions of the Earth's movement is beyond the powers of man. It is not given to mankind to change the order established by the Creator in the system of the Universe.”

“This past year - if you'd have tried, you'd have seen even more clearly the futility of trying to change the world without the efforts of everybody else on Earth. You saw and smelled and drank the evidence of six billion disasters that can only be mended by six billion people. || A thousands years ago this wouldn't have been the case. If human beings had suddenly vanished a thousand years ago, the planet would have healed overnight with no damage. Maybe a few lumps where the pyramids sand. One hundred years ago - or even fifty years ago - the world would have healed itself just fine in the absence of people. But not now. We crossed the line. the only thing that can keep the planet turning smoothly now is human free will forged into effort. Nothing else. That's why the world has seemed so large in the past few years, and time so screwy. It's because Earth is now totally ours.”

“There is the story in every man's heart of human progress. I believe every one of us knows that his major job on Earth is to make some contributions, no matter how small, to this inexorable movement of human progress.”

“In Missouri, we built the steamships that plied the Mississippi. It was people of Missouri who believed that a human being could fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone. And it was Missourians who built the capsule in which an American first orbited the earth.”

“I think they'd barely recognize us as brothers and sisters. If we told them, church is on Sundays, and we have an awesome band...if the found out 1/6th of the earth's population claimed to be Christians, I'm not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we're living in excess...But listen, early church, we have a monthly event called 'Mocha chicks', we have choir practice every Wednesday, we organize retreats with door prizes, we're raising $3 million for an outdoor amphitheater, we have catchy t-shirts, we don't smoke or say the f-word, we go to bible study every semester...the local church would be the heartbeat of the city.”

“Humans could never accept the world as it was and live in it. They were always breaking it and living amongst the shattered pieces.”

“We'd never have got a chance to go outside and look at the earth if it hadn't been for space exploration and NASA.”

“My mom is a baby angel of this earth.”

“In order to engage in an 'experiencing of the world,' one has to physically move oneself to the most diverse places on earth.”

“She is mad, and I am sane. To speak to her, even the first word, would be an acknowledgement and an acceptance of her madness, and from there I would have no choice but to follow her down the hole until both of us would be here alone in this ship among the clouds, endlessly circling the earth, our needs carefully ministered to by mechanical men, howling ourselves hoarse and counting off the ticks of the clock before the moon falls out of the sky.”

“White ain't nothing.'Mama's grip did not lessen. 'It is something, Cassie. White is something just like black is something. Everybody born on this Earth is something, and nobody, no matter what color is better than anybody else.''Then how come Mr. Simms don't know that.''Because he's one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big.' I stared questionably at Mama, not really understanding.Mama squeezed my hadn't and explained further, 'You see, Cassie, many years ago, when our people were fist brought from Africa in chains to work as slaves in this country--''Like Big Ma's Papa and Mama?'Mama nodded. "Yes, baby. Like Papa Luke and Mama Rachel. Except they were born right here is Mississippi, but their grandparents were born in Africa. And when they came, there was some white people who thought that is was wrong for any people to be slaves. So the people who needed slaves to work in their fields and the people who were making money bringing slaves from Africa preached that black people weren't really people like white people were, so slavery was all right. They also said that slavery was good for us because it thought us to be good Christians, like the white people.' She sighed deeply, her voice fading into a distant whisper, 'But they didn't teach us Christianity to save our souls, but to teach us obedience. They were afraid of slave revolts and they wanted us to learn the Bible's teachings about slaves being loyal to their masters. But even teaching Christianity didn't make us stop wanting to be free, and many slaves ran away.”...She was silent for a moment, then went on. 'Well, after a while, slavery became so profitable to people who had slaves and even to those who didn't that most people started to believe that black people weren't really people like everybody else. And when the Civil War was fought, and Mama Rachel and Papa Luke and all the other slaves were freed, people continued to think that way. Even the Northeners who fought the war didn't really see us equal to white people.'So, now, even though seventy years have passed since slavery, most white people still think of us as they did then, that we're not as good as they are. And people like Mr. Simms hold onto that belief harder than some other folks because they have little else to hold onto. For him to believe that he is better than we are makes him think that he's important, simply because he's white.”

“Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, though knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”

“Very Like a WhaleOne thing that literature would be greatly the better forWould be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and metaphor.Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,Can'ts seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but haveto go out of their way to say that it is like something else.What foes it mean when we are toldThat the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?In the first place, George Gordon Byron had had enough experienceTo know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lotof Assyrians.However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity,We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolfon the fold?In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy thereare a great many things,But i don't imagine that among then there is a wolf with purpleand gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big redmouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof woof?Frankly I think it very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,at the very most,Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he hadto invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolatethem,With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiersto people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lotof wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets,from Homer to Tennyson;They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanketafter a winter storm.Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanketof snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoeticalblanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly,What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.”

“No beast has ever conquered the earth; and the natural world has never been conquered by muscular force.”

“The G8 nations, together with the five major emerging economies of China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, use almost three-quarters of the Earth's biocapacity - the capacity of the world's ecosystems to produce natural resources and to reduce harmful substances.”

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”

“Consider again that dot [Earth]. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

“I heard one time that the Superman glyph is the second or third most recognizable symbol on Earth after the Christian cross.”