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From this distant vantage point,
the Earth might not seem of any particular interest
But for us, it's different
Consider again that dot
That's here, that's home, that's us.
On it everyone you love, everyone you know,
veryone 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.
The Earth is a very small stage
in a vast cosmic arena.
Think of the rivers of blood
spilled by all those generals and emperors
so that, in glory and triumph they could become
the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Think of the endless cruelties visited
by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel
on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner
how frequent their misunderstandings
how eager they are to kill one another
how fervent their hatreds
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance
the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe
are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck
in the great enveloping cosmic dark.
In our obscurity, in all this vastness
here is no hint that help will come from elsewhere
to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.
There is nowhere else, at least in the near future,
to which our species could migrate.
Visit, yes. Settle, not yet.
Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience
There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits
than this distant image of our tiny world.
To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another
and to preserve and cherish
the pale blue dot
the only home we've ever known.