Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

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 everyone you ever heard of every human being who ever was lived out their lives the aggregate 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 the 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 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 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 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 you know 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 you

Channel: carlsagandotcom

Views: 7,337,771

Keywords: Carl, Sagan, Pale, Blue, Dot, Science

Id: wupToqz1e2g

Length: 3min 31sec (211 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 24 2009