Echoes

Everything is interaction and reciprocal.

The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

The strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength of the pack is the wolf.

Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves. ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir.

We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.

All things are interwoven with one another; a sacred bond unites them; there is scarcely one thing that is isolated from another. Everything is coordinated, everything works together in giving form to one universe. The world-order is a unity made up of multiplicity: God is one, pervading all things; all being is one, all law is one (namely, the common reason which all thinking persons possess) and all truth is one– if, as we believe, there can be but one path to perfection for beings that are alike in kind and reason.

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.

Do not mistake yourself by believing that your being has something in it more exalted than that of others.

Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

If the public thought elevates you above the generality of men, let the other humble you, and hold you in a perfect equality with all mankind, for this is your natural condition.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up.

If you act externally with men in conformity with your rank, you should recognize, by a more secret but truer thought, that you have nothing naturally superior to them.

It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you.

One arrow alone can be easily broken but many arrows are indestructible.

Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations... In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.

In the place where I am now, I look back over my life. I look back at the world I've left behind. What message do I want to leave? I want to make sure that you all understand that each and every one of you has a role to play. You may not know it. You may not find it. But your life matters, and you are here for a reason. And I just hope that that reason will become apparent as you live through your life. I want you to know that, whether or not you find that role that you find that role that you are supposed to play, your life does matter and that every single day you live, you make a difference in the world. And you get to choose the difference that you make.

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 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 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.

Be of one mind and one faith, that you may conquer your enemies and lead long and happy lives.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Truth lies open for all; it has not yet been monopolized. And there is plenty of it left even for posterity to discover.