Quotations, Fav Movie Lines, and so on and so forth etc

[tsunamiSD]

Following on to the last post here:

“The American workingman must live in a house, not a hut; he must wear decent clothes and eat wholesome and nourishing food. He is an integral part of the municipality, the State, and the Nation; subject to no fetters of class or caste; neither pauper, nor peasant, nor serf, but a free American citizen. He has the ballot, and if it were possible it would be dangerous to degrade him. The country stands pledged to give him education, political power, and a higher form of life than foreign nations accord their laborers, and he must be sustained by higher rates of wages than those of Europe. Our industries operated by American citizens must be freed from foreign interference and organized into a distinct American system, which will exact some temporary sacrifices but result in general prosperity and true national independence. In maintaining diversified industries we utilize every talent, provide a field for every capacity, and bind together the whole people in mutual dependence and support, assuring the strength and security of our Republic.”



Senator Daniel J. Morrell, a REPUBLICAN Senator from Pennsylvania in the 1860s

[MaxJoker]

Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative

~ T. S. Eliot

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind

~ Napoleon Bonaparte

What do you think ?

~ Emmett Fitz-Hume

[Eric Cartman]

While it might not be considered a "quote", the words are quote worthy and on this Memorial Day weekend I thank God for the greatest generation and all those who gave their lives to preserve freedom and democracy. Not just American soldiers but every soul who gave everything for their country no matter where on this planet they might hail from.

[george anson]

On the image taken by Voyager One in 1990 when NASA instructed the craft to take one last shot back to Earth catching a tiny blueish pixel caught in a sunbeam....

Look again at that dot. 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.

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, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour 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.

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

[rewbear]

Originally Posted by george anson

On the image taken by Voyager One in 1990 when NASA instructed the craft to take one last shot back to Earth catching a tiny blueish pixel caught in a sunbeam....

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour 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.

...

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

In the years since Carl Sagan wrote these profound words science has often speculated on the existence of "Earth-like" planets orbiting "Sun-like" stars hundreds or thousands of light-years away, engendering a kind of hope among the unknowing that we could find either an equal or better society from which to learn how to change, or a place to which the 'Ark of Humanity' could float with the remnants of our species to start again, once we have sucked this one dry or bombed it into sterility.

But that is all there is: false hope and ignorant speculation, and the deeply-moving image Carl Sagan brilliantly encapsulates in this quote should be shown to every leader of every nation upon taking office; it should be on the flag of the supposed 'United Nations'; and it should be on the curriculum of every school in every country every day, so that every inhabitant of this 'pale blue dot' should not only "deal more kindly with each other", but treat this only home we will ever have more kindly too.

Many thanks to George Anson for this memorable post.

[tsunamiSD]

[Estreeter]

[MaxJoker]

I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me

~ H. P. Lovecraft

Pizza makes me think that anything is possible

~ Henry Rollins

Good answer, good answer

~ Professor Terguson

[scoundrel]

Dorimant. Call a footman.
Handy. None of'em are come yet.
Dorimant. Dogs! Will they ever lie snoring a-bed till noon?
Handy. 'Tis all one, sir: if they're up, you indulge 'em so they're ever poaching after whores all the morning.
Dorimant. Take notice henceforward, who's wanting in his duty, the next clap he gets, he shall rot for an example.


~ The Man of Mode by George Etherege.

[tsunamiSD]