“Immensely powerful though we are today, it's equally clear that we're going to be even more powerful tomorrow. And what's more there will be greater compulsion upon us to use our power as the number of human beings on Earth increases still further. Clearly we could devastate the world. [… ] As far as we know, the Earth is the only place in the universe where there is life. Its continued survival now rests in our hands.”

—  David Attenborough

Closing lines
The Living Planet (1984)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Immensely powerful though we are today, it's equally clear that we're going to be even more powerful tomorrow. And what…" by David Attenborough?
David Attenborough photo
David Attenborough70
British broadcaster and naturalist 1926

Related quotes

“Human exceptionalism is using the Earth, exhausting the Earth, treating the Earth as if the Earth is for us as a resource. We don't act as if we are part of the Earth. And nonhuman animals are beneath us in this schema. And then certain animals are more valid than others. And our measure is based on the equivalence to us rather than on the fact that they are on the Earth … and then within human, we have a similar hierarchy, where white, heterosexual, usually rich men are at the top and then arguably, you know, the rest of us.”

Patricia MacCormack Australian Scholar

Why this professor's climate-crisis solution is rankling Twitter: 'The worst thing you can do is have a child' https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-professor-climate-crisis-solution-rankling-twitter-155305526.html (13 February 2020) Yahoo!Life

Paul D. Miller (academic) photo

“What’s wrong with empowering government? When you give government new powers and responsibilities, you are also increasing its police power. If we put government in charge of a thing — say, ensuring income equality — we are also handing it the power to police that thing nationwide, to impose penalties for breaches of its new regulations, and ultimately to coerce citizens into compliance. At the limit, we grant the state the power to take our money, imprison us, and even execute us if we violate its laws.”

Paul D. Miller (academic) American academic

Why Socialism Is Bad (2018)

Carl Sagan photo

“Our intelligence and our technology have given us the power to affect the climate. How will we use this power? Are we willing to tolerate ignorance and complacency in matters that affect the entire human family? Do we value short-term advantages above the welfare of the Earth? Or will we think on longer time scales, with concern for our children and our grandchildren, to understand and protect the complex life-support systems of our planet? The Earth is a tiny and fragile world. It needs to be cherished.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 103

Thomas Jefferson photo

“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Joseph Boyden photo

“I say that humans are the only ones in this world that need everything within it… But there is nothing in the world that needs us for its survival. We aren't the masters of the earth. We're the servants.”

Joseph Boyden book The Orenda

Source: The Orenda

Andrew Marshall photo

“On reflection, it is not even clear if military power is a transitive relationship. Until we have defined more explicitly how we are going to measure military power, it is not clear that if A is more powerful than B, and B more powerful than C, that A is more powerful than C.”

Andrew Marshall (1921–2019) the director of the United States Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment

Problems of Estimating Military Power, August 1966
Problems of Estimating Military Power (August 1966)

Louise L. Hay photo

“You have the power to heal your life, and you need to know that. We think so often that we are helpless, but we're not. We always have the power of our minds…Claim and consciously use your power.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

“No more would I go along with Plato in exiling the poets, who play on the limbic cortex. Not even they are powerful enough to evoke the whole of man. If we are to survive our own destruction of our world and of ourselves by our advance of culture we had better learn soon to modify our genes to make us more intelligent. It is our last chance, that by increasing our diversity we may be able to make some sort of man that can survive without an ecological niche on this our earth. We may be able to live in gas masks and eat algae and distill the ocean.
I doubt that we have time enough.

We are, I think, nearing the end of a course that left the main line of evolution to overspecialize in brain to its own undoing.
Time will tell.”

Warren S. McCulloch (1898–1969) American neuroscientist

Source: Embodiments of Mind, (1965), p. 347 cited in: Roberto Moreno-Díaz, José Mira, Warren Sturgis McCulloch (1996) Brain processes, theories, and models: an international conference in honor of W.S. McCulloch 25 years after his death. p. 9

John Trudell photo

“The Earth gives us life, not the American government. The earth gives us life, not the multi-national corporate government. The Earth gives us life. We need to have the Earth. We must have it, otherwise our life will be no more. So we must resist what they do.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

"We are Power" speech (1980)

Forrest Sherman photo

“The survival of this country depends upon letting the world know we have the power and the ability to use it if the occasion demands.”

Forrest Sherman (1896–1951) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

As quoted in "According to Plan" in TIME magazine (13 March 1950) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,812125,00.html

Related topics