“By a diabolical irony the very facsimiles of the world which we make on purpose to bring it within our grasp, to make it less elusive, have transported us into a new world of blurs.”

Nobel lecture (2005)
Context: Imagine what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on development as on building the machines of war. Imagine a world where every human being would live in freedom and dignity. Imagine a world in which we would shed the same tears when a child dies in Darfur or Vancouver. Imagine a world where we would settle our differences through diplomacy and dialogue and not through bombs or bullets. Imagine if the only nuclear weapons remaining were the relics in our museums. Imagine the legacy we could leave to our children.
Imagine that such a world is within our grasp.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)
Context: The world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact... that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction.... in a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise.... The medieval world was... not without a sense of order. Ordinary men and women... had no doubt that there was such a design, and their priests were well able, by deduction from a handful of principles, to make it, if not rational, at least coherent.... The situation we are presently in is much different.... sadder and more confusing and certainly more mysterious.... There is no consistent, integrated conception of the world which serves as the foundation on which our edifice of belief rests. And therefore... we are more naive than those of the Middle Ages, and more frightened, for we can be made to believe almost anything.

Source: Just After Sunset

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

James Martin (1993, p. 17) as cited in: " CIS330 Object Oriented Approach Ch2 http://webcadnet.blogspot.nl/2011/04/cis330-object-oriented-approach-text_3598.html" webcadnet.blogspot.nl. 2011/04/16

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)
Context: We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

Source: Middlemarch

U.S. president George Bush made those comments on January 1, 1990. The Watchtower magazine; In Search of a New World Order (15 July 1991)