Aadhu

“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 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. 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.

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 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.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful…” (Udana Varga, 5:18) Christianity: “All things whatsoever you would that mean should do to you, do you even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets…” (Matthew 7:12) Confucianism: “If there is one maxim that ought to be acted upon throughout one’s whole life, surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness. Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you…” (Analects 15:23) Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do nothing unto others what would cause you pain if done unto you…” (Mahabharata, 5:1517) Islam: “Love for humanity what you love for yourself…”13 (Hadith of Prophet Muhammad) “Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you…” (Prophet Muhammad, The Farewell Sermon) Judaism: “What is hateful to you, do not unto your fellow man. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary…” (Talmud, Shabbat 31a; Tobit 4:15) Taoism: “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss…” (T’ai Shang Kan-Ying P’ien, 213-218) Zoroastrianism: “That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto others what it would not do itself…”14 (Dadistan-I Dinik, 94:5)”
― Arsalan Iftikhar, Islamic Pacifism

“you can’t fart without changing the balance in the universe.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle