Quotes about earth
page 11

“What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how; instruct them how the mind of man becomes a thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells…”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Source: Lyrical Ballads

Love, Beauty, Time

“My first vision of earth was water veiled.”

Anaïs Nin book House of Incest

Source: House of Incest (1936)
Context: My first vision of earth was water veiled. I am of the race of men and women who see all things through this curtain of sea and my eyes are the color of water. I looked with chameleon eyes upon the changing face of the world, looked with anonymous vision upon my uncompleted self. I remember my first birth in water.

Water

“Where would I find enough leather
To cover the entire surface of the earth?
But with leather soles beneath my feet,
It’s as if the whole world has been covered.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

§ 5.13
Bodhicaryavatara, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life
Context: Where would there be leather enough to cover the entire world? With just the leather of my sandals, it is as if the whole world were covered. Likewise, I am unable to restrain external phenomena, but I shall restrain my own mind. What need is there to restrain anything else?

World

“My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth.
I have look'd for equals and lovers an found them ready for me in all lands,
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Lovers, Thinking

“I'll never forget my first time with you' Min said as she edged the doughnut off her finger. 'The earth moved, and then my mother asked my father who he was going down on at lunch.”

Jennifer Crusie book Bet Me

Source: Bet Me

Time, Forgetting

“The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Light, Sun

“Please, I begged silently, please do not let my last moments on earth be me crammed into a tiny boat in the dark, surrounded by mechanical singing pirates.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

Singing

“Whoever doesn't live in poetry cannot survive here on earth.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Source: Under the Glacier

“Into the the air, into the earth, into the fire, I am with you.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Life, Health, Chance

“About the nature of human beings. I discovered that confronted by temptation, we will always fall. Given the right circumstances, every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Nature, Evil

“Carolina beach music," Dupree said, coming up on the porch. "The holiest sound on earth.”

Pat Conroy book Beach Music

Source: Beach Music

Music

“For the future of the earth, We shall fight for it ~Nyan!~”

Mia Ikumi (1979) Japanese manga artist

Source: Tokyo Mew Mew, Vol. 1

Future, Fight

“How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!”

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

People

“"I'll follow him to the ends of the earth," she sobbed. Yes, darling. But the earth doesn't have any ends. Columbus fixed that.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

“A man wasn't equal to an animal, not one particle of him. Human life was stinking corrupt, and meanwhile there were beautiful creatures who lived with delicacy on the earth without doing anyone harm. "We should be dying." the judge almost wept.”

Kiran Desai book The Inheritance of Loss

Source: The Inheritance of Loss

Life, Beauty, Animals

“I wish I’d done everything on Earth with you.”

Baz Luhrmann (1962) Australian film director, screenwriter and producer

“If the Angels won, the entire Earth would be nothing but one giant Christmas frickin' morning, a choking wave of happiness and warmth and caring and sharing taking over everything.”

Jessica Bird book Covet

Source: Covet

Angels, Christmas, Happiness

“I think only once in your life do you find someone that you say, "Hey, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my time on this earth with." And if you miss it, or walk away from it, or even maybe, blink - it's gone.”

Jacqueline Woodson (1963) American writer

Source: If You Come Softly

Life, Thinking, Time, Personality

“You won't find Earth people, quite the easy mark you imagine”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire

People, Imagination

“For thousands of nights I dreamed of making love to you. No man on earth has ever hated sunrise as I do.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Again the Magic

love, Good Night, Romantic, For Her

“What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: Stickeen

Singing

“Earth will be safe when we feel in us enough safety.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems

Feeling

“So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is such a large part of what it means to be human?
I'm not sure. That's my answer: I'm not sure.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

World, Parting

“Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Dreams, Reality, Sense

“She was like a lone angel floating above the surface of the earth, laughing with delight because she could fly but crying out of loneliness.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Angels, Loneliness, Cry, Flying

“People don't get it. He didn't even have a fuckin' map; what kind of idiot? THAT was the point. There's no blank spots on the map anymore, anywhere on earth. If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.”

Jon Krakauer (1954) American outdoors writer and journalist

People

“There was earth inside them, and they dug.”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

“Life is the most spectacular show on earth”

Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants

Variant: Life is the greatest show on earth!
Source: Water for Elephants

Life

“Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Soul, Universe

“At night I dream that you and I are two plants
that grew together, roots entwined,
and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,
since we are made of earth and rain.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: Regalo de un Poeta

Dreams, Night

“I wandered the earth a mercenary, daring the gods to kill me but surviving because part of me was already dead.”

Barry Eisler book A Clean Kill in Tokyo

Source: A Clean Kill in Tokyo

God, Parting, Dead

“Its important to know stories. I felt the earth shift to make a place for you when you were born, and I came to tell you stories while you are young. And like me, you were born with a word on your tongue.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

“When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

People, Fear, Drawing

“Oh, how a small portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living!”

Shiv Khera (1961) Indian politician

Source: You Can Win: A Step by Step Tool for Top Achievers

World, Dead

“because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Nobel lecture (8 December 1982) http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_nobel.html <br class="br">Variant: races condemned to 100 years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. <br class="br">Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude <br class="br">Context: The most prosperous countries have succeeded in accumulating powers of destruction such as to annihilate, a hundred times over, not only all the human beings that have existed to this day, but also the totality of all living beings that have ever drawn breath on this planet of misfortune.<br>On a day like today, my master William Faulkner said, "I decline to accept the end of man." I would fall unworthy of standing in this place that was his, if I were not fully aware that the colossal tragedy he refused to recognize thirty-two years ago is now, for the first time since the beginning of humanity, nothing more than a simple scientific possiblity. Faced with this awesome reality that must have seemed a mere utopia through all of human time, we, the inventors of tales, who will believe anything, feel entitled to believe that it is not yet too late to engage in the creation of the opposite utopia. A new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth.

Solitude

“It was a kiss to level mountains and shake stars from the sky. It was a kiss to make angels faint and demons weep… a passionate, demanding, soul-searing kiss that nearly knocked the earth off its axis.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Tempt Me at Twilight

Angels, Soul, Mountain, Star

“Well let's face it, who on earth besides antique dealers and gay couples actually still give dinner parties?”

Nigel Slater (1958) English food writer, journalist and broadcaster

The Guardian, London, In this month's OFM, Nigel, Slater, 2005-11-13, 2010-05-20 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,,1637598,00.html,

“You could run to the farthest corners of the earth. There's no place you could go where I wouldn't love you. Nothing you could do to stop me.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

Love

“I was being paid to do what I loved, and there's no gig on earth better than that; it's like a license to steal.”

Stephen King book Bag of Bones

Source: Bag of Bones

Love

“I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”

Jonathan Swift book Les Voyages de Gulliver

Voyage to Brobdingnag, Ch. 6
Source: Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Nature, Suffering

“A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

Source: The Selected Poetry

Life, Kiss, Time

“Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by "opinions" when you reach DECISIONS, you will not succeed in any undertaking.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

Decision

“For the time being, the entire earth and the boundless sky.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Time

“Everything, absolutely everything on this earth makes sense, and even the smallest things are worthy of our consideration.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Sense

“I thought about the relentless thought-processing, soul-devouring machine that is my brain, and wondered how on earth I was ever going to master it. Then I remembered that line from Jaws and couldn't help smiling: 'We're gonna need a bigger boat.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Smile, Soul, Help

“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

“In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Light, Suffering, Night

“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Secret, Sleep, Personality

“if you stay still, earth buries you, ready or not.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: For the Time Being

“I don't care if you say we can't be together. I don't care if you think I'm the most evil, unnatural creature walking on earth. You can think whatever you want, go whatever you want. I'm going to just go on loving you, even if it's hopeless.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Love, Thinking, Evil

“and that is what heaven is for, for understanding your life on Earth.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Life, Understanding

“No one on earth is so boring and insignificant that he or she is not worth writing or reading about… One thing's for sure—no one but you can be the hero of your story.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

Reading

“I think classical ballet dancers dance on pointe because they're simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Thinking, Dance

“I used to measure the heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth.
Although my mind was heaven-bound, the shadow of my body lies here.”

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

Epitaph he composed for himself a few months before he died, as quoted in Calculusː Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Unsourced variant: I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body's shadow lies here.

“What on earth can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you, with both your fingers, until your fingers are broken?”

Tennessee Williams Orpheus Descending

Source: Orpheus Descending

“I love you because all the loves in the world are like different rivers flowing into the same lake where they meet and are transformed into a single love that becomes rain and blesses the earth.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

Love, World

“Earth is the insane asylum of the universe.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Universe

“Measured against eternity, our time on earth is just a blink of an eye, but the consequences of it will last forever.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Time

“I wanted to create a voyage to the moon just for her, but what I
should have given her was a real journey on earth.”

Mathias Malzieu book La Mécanique du cœur

Source: La Mécanique du cœur

“Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?”

Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden

Source: The Secret Garden

“There's music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears;
The earth is but the music of the spheres.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Men, Music

“The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather would land on it harshly; light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding.”

Gretel Ehrlich (1946) American writer

Source: The Solace of Open Spaces

Truth, Art, Light, Weather

“And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Love, Learning

“Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Pain, Family, Flowers, Time

“Any planet is 'Earth' to those that live on it.”

Isaac Asimov book Pebble in the Sky

Source: Pebble in the Sky

“Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God's new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

Source: Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense

God

“There are rocks deep enough in this earth that no matter what the rupture, they will never see the surface.

There is, I think, a fear of love.

There is a fear of love.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Love, Fear, Thinking

“Men will never rest till they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.”

Richard Adams book Watership Down

Source: Watership Down

Men, Animals

“A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space. On the back it said, 'Wish you were here.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Give me love, give me peace on earth,
Give me light, give me life, keep me free from birth,
Give me hope, help me cope, with this heavy load,
Trying to, touch and reach you with, heart and soul.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) (1973)
Lyrics

Love, Life, Peace, Hope

“Happiness is a hound dog in the sun. We aren't on Earth to be happy, but to experience incredible things.

- Hannah Schneider”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Dogs, Sun, Happiness

“At best, love is simply the slipping of a hand in another's, of knowing you are where you belong at last, and of exchanging through the eyes that all-consuming regard which ignores everybody else on earth.”

Laurie Lee (1914–1997) British writer

Source: I Can't Stay Long

Love

“The point is that nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"The Salt of the Earth"
Source: The Harsh Voice: Four Short Novels (1935)

“Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are its tormented souls.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: Essays and Aphorisms

Men, Soul, Animals

“The hurt is not enough: I long for weight and strength. To feel the earth as rough to all my length”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Source: Complete Poems Of Robert Frost, 1949

Feeling, Hurt

“People often ask me where I stand politically. It's not that I disagree with Bush's economic policy or his foreign policy, it's that I believe he was a child of Satan sent here to destroy the planet Earth. Little to the left.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Shock and Awe (2003)

People

“Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth. There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death.”

Robert Jordan The Fires of Heaven

Source: The Fires of Heaven

Death, Hope

“He stared at her, knowing with certainty that he was falling in love. He pulled her close and kissed her beneath a blanket of stars, wondering how on earth he'd been lucky enough to find her.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Love, Star, Kiss

“What four realms? (Amanda)
Time, space, earth, and dreams. (Talon)
Okay, now that is scary. Some of you guys walk through time? (Amanda)
And space and dreams. (Talon)
Ah. So Rod Sterling was a Were-Hunter? (Amanda)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Dreams, Guy, Time

“And the Earth had no name. The gods know themselves and have no need of names. It is man who names all things, even gods.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

God

“Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do. I've never had a feeling in my life. As a matter of fact, I matter only with earth people.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Wind in the Door

Source: A Wind in the Door

Love, Life, People, Feeling

“It’s funny," I said. "It’s very funny. And it’s a lot of fun, too, to be in love."

"Do you think so?" her eyes looked flat again.

"I don’t mean fun that way. In a way it’s an enjoyable feeling."

"No," she said. "I think it’s hell on earth.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

Love, Way, Feeling, Hell

“Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"Birches" (1920)
General sources
Source: Swinger of Birches
Context: I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

Love