Rita Issa

“كلا .. لست أهوى القراءة لأكتب، ولا أهوى القراءة لازداد عمراً في تقدير الحساب .. وإنما أهوى القراءة لأن عندي حياة واحدة في هذه الدنيا، وحياة واحدة لا تكفيني، ولا تحرك كل ما في ضميري من بواعث الحركة. والقراءة دون غيرها هي التي تعطيني أكثر من حياة واحدة في مدى عمر الانسان الواحد، لأنها تزيد هذه الحياة من ناحية العمق، وإن كانت لا تطيلها بمقادير الحساب.
فكرتك أنت فكرة واحدة .. شعورك أنت شعور واحد .. خيالك أنت خيال فرد إذا قصرته عليك .. ولكنك إذا لاقيت بفكرتك فكرة أخرى، أو لاقيت بشعورك شعوراً آخر، أو لاقيت بخيالك خيال غيرك .. فليس قصارى الأمر أن الفكرة تصبح فكرتين، أو أن الشعور يصبح شعورين، أو أن الخيال يصبح خيالين .. كلا .. وإنما تصبح الفكرة بهذا التلاقي مئات من الفكر في القوة والعمق والامتداد. [..] لا أحب الكتب لأنني زاهد في الحياة .. ولكنني أحب الكتب لأن حياة واحدة لا تكفيني .. ومهما يأكل الانسان فإنه لن يأكل بأكثر من معدة واحدة، ومهما يلبس فإنه لن يلبس على غير جسد واحد، ومهما يتنقل في البلاد فإنه لن يستطيع أن يحل في مكانين. ولكنه بزاد الفكر والشعور والخيال يستطيع أن يجمع الحيوات في عمر واحد، ويستطيع أن يضاعف فكره وشعوره وخياله كما يتضاعف الشعور بالحب المتبادل، وتتضاعف الصورة بين مرآتين”
― عباس محمود العقاد, أنا

“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

“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
― Carl Sagan