1093 – “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one who inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait not known to the higher animals.”

-Mark Twain

1086 – “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”

-Thomas E Cronin

1064 – “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

-Neil Armstrong

1005 – Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan on Humans and Animals

“Humans – who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals – have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and ‘animals’ is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them – without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.”

-Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

Advertisement

965 – “Climb mountains not so the world can see, but so you can see the world.”

-anonymous

919 – Benét’s Prayer for The Common Man

“God of the free, we pledge our hearts and lives today to the cause of all free mankind.
Grant us victory over the tyrants who would enslave all free men and nations. Grant us faith and understanding to cherish all those who fight for freedom as if they were our brothers. Grant us brotherhood in hope and union, not only for the space of this bitter war, but for the days to come which shall and must unite all the children of earth.
Our earth is but a small star in the great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color or theory. Grant us that courage and foreseeing to begin this task today that our children and our children’s children may be proud of the name of man.
The spirit of man has awakened and the soul of man has gone forth. Grant us the wisdom and the vision to comprehend the greatness of man’s spirit, that suffers and endures so hugely for a goal beyond his own brief span. Grant us honor for our dead who died in the faith, honor for our living who work and strive for the faith, redemption and security for all captive lands and peoples. Grant us patience with the deluded and pity for the betrayed. And grant us the skill and valor that shall cleanse the world of oppression and the old base doctrine that the strong must eat the weak because they are strong.
Yet most of all grant us brotherhood, not only for this day but for all our years — a brotherhood not of words but of acts and deeds. We are all of us children of earth — grant us that simple knowledge. If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed. If they hunger, we hunger. If their freedom is taken away, our freedom is not secure. Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace — that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best, not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march toward the clean world our hands can make.
Amen.”

-Stephen Vincent Benét

791 – “The genuine scientist is not moved by praise or blame, nor does he preach. He unveils the universe and people come eagerly, without being pushed, to behold a new revelation: the order, the harmony, the magnificence of creation! And as man becomes conscious of the stupendous laws that govern the universe in perfect harmony, he begins to realize how small he is.”

–Albert Einstein

772 – A Quote About Life and a Cosmic Perspective

“You are currently on a 4.5 billion year old spaceship. A self sufficient, organic, complex spaceship. You are orbiting a power source that is a million times large than your ship. There are 200 billion more power sources, possibly with ships like yours, in your group. There are 40 more groups in your particular neighborhood. Your neighborhood is moving at 2 million miles per hour to an object that is 150 million light years away. Welcome to life. It’s more exciting when you think on a larger scale.”

–anonymous

739 – “We have a genetic kinship with all life on Earth, an atomic kinship to all matter in the cosmos. So when I look at the Universe, I feel large, because I remind myself that not only are we living in this Universe, the Universe is living within us.”

–Neil deGrasse Tyson

207 – “If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently.”

–Calvin in Bill Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbes Comics