Quotes about earth
page 34

Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“God, through Jesus Christ, is the victory, and the renewed earth will reflect that glory.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 110

Daniel Dennett photo

“A faith, like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment changes. It is not a gentle process in either case. … It's nice to have grizzly bears and wolves living in the wild. They are no longer a menace; we can peacefully co-exist, with a little wisdom. The same policy can be discerned in our political tolerance, in religious freedom. You are free to preserve or create any religious creed you wish, so long as it does not become a public menace. We're all on the Earth together, and we have to learn some accommodation. … The message is clear: those who will not accommodate, who will not temper, who insist on keeping only the purest and wildest strain of their heritage alive, we will be obliged, reluctantly, to cage or disarm, and we will do our best to disable the memes they fight for. Slavery is beyond the pale. Child abuse is beyond the pale. Discrimination is beyond the pale. The pronouncing of death sentences on those who blaspheme against a religion (complete with bounties or reward for those who carry them out) is beyond the pale. It is not civilized, and it is owed no more respect in the name of religious freedom than any other incitement to cold-blooded murder. … That is — or, rather, ought to be, the message of multiculturalism, not the patronizing and subtly racist hypertolerance that "respects" vicious and ignorant doctrines when they are propounded by officials of non-European states and religions.”

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Neal Stephenson photo
Sara Teasdale photo
Bernhard Riemann photo
Edward Coote Pinkney photo

“I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaven.”

Edward Coote Pinkney (1802–1828) American poet, lawyer, sailor, professor, and editor

A Health, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“If you do not like it here, you can leave, but under the earth, not over it.”

Wirth speaking to the SS personnel at Sobibór extermination camp, from H.E.A.R.T. - Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team http://www.holocaustresearchproject.net/ar/treblinkadaytoday.html

Brigham Young photo

“Some, in their curiosity, will say, "But you Mormons have another Bible! Do you believe in the Old and New Testaments?" I answer we do believe in the Old and New Testaments, and we have also another book, called the Book of Mormon. What are the doctrines of the Book of Mormon? The same as those of the Bible…"What good does it do you, Latter-day Saints?" It proves that the Bible is true. What do the infidel world say about the Bible? They say that the Bible is nothing better than last year's almanack; it is nothing but a fable and priestcraft, and it is good for nothing. The Book of Mormon, however, declares that the Bible is true, and it proves it; and the two prove each other true. The Old and New Testaments are the stick of Judah. You recollect that the tribe of Judah tarried in Jerusalem and the Lord blessed Judah, and the result was the writings of the Old and New Testaments. But where is the stick of Joseph? Can you tell where it is? Yes. It was the children of Joseph who came across the waters to this continent, and this land was filled with people, and the Book of Mormon or the stick of Joseph contains their writings, and they are in the hands of Ephraim. Where are the Ephraimites? They are mixed through all the nations of the earth. God is calling upon them to gather out, and He is uniting them, and they are giving the Gospel to the whole world. Is there any harm or any false doctrine in that? A great many say there is. If there is, it is all in the Bible.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 13:174-175 (May 29, 1870)
1870s

Bill Mollison photo
Ernest Hemingway photo

“For our dead are a part of the earth of Spain now and the earth of Spain can never die.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

"On the American Dead in Spain", New Masses (February 14, 1939)

Rumi photo

“The place that Solomon made to worship in,
called the Far Mosque, is not built of earth
and water and stone, but of intention and wisdom
and mystical conversation and compassionate action.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"The Far Mosque" in Ch. 17 : Solomon Poems, p. 191
Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“Men in general are neither very good nor very bad, but mediocre… Man with his vices, his weaknesses, his virtues, this confused medley of good and ill, high and low, goodness and depravity, is yet, take him all in all, the object on earth most worthy of study, of interest, of pity, of attachment and of admiration. And since we haven't got angels, we can attach ourselves to nothing greater and more worthy of our devotion than our own kind.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Letter to Eugene Stoffels (Jan. 3, 1845) as quoted by Thomas Molnar, The Decline of the Intellectual (1961) Ch. 11 "Intellectual and Philosopher"
Original text:
Les hommes ne sont en général ni très-bons, ni très-mauvais : ils sont médiocres. [...] L'homme avec ses vices, ses faiblesses, ses vertus, ce mélange confus de bien et de mal, de bas et de haut, d'honnête et de dépravé, est encore, à tout prendre, l'objet le plus digne d'examen, d'intérêt, de pitié, d'attachement et d'admiration qui se trouve sur la terre; et puisque les anges nous manquent, nous ne saurions nous attacher à rien qui soit plus grand et plus digne de notre dévouement que nos semblables.
1840s

Tommy Robinson photo
Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) photo

“The elder Herschel, directing his wonderful tube towards the sides of our system, where stars are planted most rarely… was enabled with awe struck mind to see suspended in the vast empyrean astral systems, or, as he called them, firmaments, resembling our own. Like light cloudlets to a certain power of the telescope, they resolved themselves, under a greater power, into stars, though these generally seemed no larger than the finest particles of diamond dust. The general forms of these systems are various; but one at least has been detected as bearing a striking resemblance to the supposed form of our own. The distances are also various… The farthest observed by the astronomer were estimated by him as thirty-five thousand times more remote than Sirius, supposing its distance to be about twenty thousand millions of miles. It would thus appear, that not only does gravitation keep our earth in its place in the solar system, and the solar system in its place in our astral system, but it also may be presumed to have the mightier duty of preserving a local arrangement between that astral system and an immensity of others, through which the imagination is left to wander on and on without limit or stay, save that which is given by its inability to grasp the unbounded.”

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 6-7

Richard Hooker photo

“Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage,—the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.”

Richard Hooker (1554–1600) English bishop and Anglican Divine

Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594), Book I, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Clifford D. Simak photo
Douglas MacArthur photo
Dennis Kucinich photo
Bob Dylan photo

“In these days he promoted a bramin, by name Seeva Dew Bhut, to the office of prime minister, who embracing the Mahomedan faith, became such a persecutor of Hindoos that he induced Sikundur to issue orders proscribing the residence of any other than Mahomedans in Kashmeer; and he required that no man should wear the mark on his forehead, or any woman be permitted to burn with her husband’s corpse. Lastly, he insisted on all golden and silver images being broken and melted down, and the metal coined into money. Many of the bramins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped the evil of banishment by becoming Mahomedans. After the emigration of the bramins, Sikundur ordered all the temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down; among which was one dedicated to Maha Dew, in the district of Punjhuzara, which they were unable to destroy, in consequence of its foundation being below the surface of the neighbouring water. But the temple dedicated to Jug Dew was levelled with the ground; and on digging into its foundation the earth emitted volumes of fire and smoke which the infidels declared to be the emblem of the wrath of the Deity; but Sikundur, who witnessed the phenomenon, did not desist till the building was entirely razed to the ground, and its foundations dug up….. “In another place in Kashmeer was a temple built by Raja Bulnat, the destruction of which was attended with a remarkable incident. After it had been levelled, and the people were employed in digging the foundation, a copper-plate was discovered, on which was the following inscription:- ‘Raja Bulnat, having built this temple, was desirous of ascertaining from his astrologers how long it would last, and was informed by them, that after eleven hundred years, a king named Sikundur would destroy it, as well as the other temples in Kashmeer’…Having broken all the images in Kashmeer, he acquired the title of the Iconoclast, ‘Destroyer of Idols’…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (AD 1389-1413)Kashmir
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Orson Scott Card photo
Ken Ham photo

“I’m shocked at the countless hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over the years in the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life… Of course, secularists are desperate to find life in outer space, as they believe that would provide evidence that life can evolve in different locations and given the supposed right conditions! The search for extraterrestrial life is really driven by man’s rebellion against God in a desperate attempt to supposedly prove evolution!… And I do believe there can’t be other intelligent beings in outer space because of the meaning of the gospel. You see, the Bible makes it clear that Adam’s sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam’s sin, but because they are not Adam’s descendants, they can’t have salvation. One day, the whole universe will be judged by fire, and there will be a new heavens and earth. God’s Son stepped into history to be Jesus Christ, the “Godman,” to be our relative, and to be the perfect sacrifice for sin—the Savior of mankind. Jesus did not become the “GodKlingon” or the “GodMartian”! Only descendants of Adam can be saved. God’s Son remains the “Godman” as our Savior. In fact, the Bible makes it clear that we see the Father through the Son (and we see the Son through His Word). To suggest that aliens could respond to the gospel is just totally wrong. An understanding of the gospel makes it clear that salvation through Christ is only for the Adamic race—human beings who are all descendants of Adam.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"We'll find a new Earth within 20 years" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/07/20/well-find-a-new-earth-within-20-years/, Around the World with Ken Ham (July 20, 2014)
Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

Ken Ham photo
Michel Danino photo

“Aryabhata conceived the earth as a rotating sphere in space, which causes the apparent rising and setting of the sun. Varahamihira disagreed and Brahmagupta derided Aryabhata — but unlike medieval Europe, the intellectual climate in India was free and tolerant of dissent.”

Michel Danino (1956) Indian writer

On ancient Indian astronomers, as quoted in " Unlike medieval Europe, India’s intellectual climate was free and tolerant: Michel Danino http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/the-interviews-blog/unlike-medieval-europe-indias-intellectual-climate-was-free-and-tolerant-michel-danino/", The Times of India (9 February 2015)

Jack Kerouac photo
Kent Hovind photo
John Mearsheimer photo

“Specifically, the presence of oceans on much of the earth's surface makes it impossible for any state to achieve global hegemony.”

Source: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), Chapter 4, The Primacy of Land Power, p. 84

Lord Dunsany photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
James K. Morrow photo

“If You intervene too profusely in Earth’s affairs, I’ve noticed, the inhabitants become chronically distracted, and they forget to worship You.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

"Bible Stories for Adults, No. 20: The Tower" p. 67 (originally published in Author’s Choice Monthly #8: Swatting at the Cosmos)
Short fiction, Bible Stories for Adults (1996)

Thomas Carlyle photo
Pietro Metastasio photo

“The fiery lava in the hollow bosom of the earth, if it be restrained, in spite of its prison, bursts forth with greater force; then flows abroad, but, as it flows, subverts, beats down, and overthrows plains, mountains, forests, and cities.”

Del terreno nel concavo seno
Vasto incendio se bolle ristretto,
A dispetto del carcere indegno,
Con più sdegno gran strada si fa.
Fugge allora; ma, intanto che fugge,
Crolla, abbatte, sovverte, distrugge
Piani, monti, foreste e città.
Act III, scene 3.
Achille in Sciro (1736)

Robert Charles Wilson photo
Larry Wall photo

“Randal can write one-liners again. Everyone is happy, and peace spreads over the whole Earth.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Empedocles photo

“With deep roots Ether plunged into earth.”

fr. 54
On Nature

Auguste Rodin photo

“I feel it, but I cannot express it,… I cannot analyse the Celtic genius to my own satisfaction. In the Middle Ages art came from groups, not from individuals. It was anonymous; the sculptors of cathedrals no more put their names to their works than our workmen put theirs on the pavement that they lay. Ah! what an admirable scorn of notoriety! The signature is what destroys us. We do portraits, but what we do is not so great. Thèse kings and queens, on the cathedrals, were not portraits. The fellow-workers stood for one another, and they interpreted; they did not copy. They made clothed figures; the nude and portraiture only date from the Renascence. And then those fellows cut with the tool's end into the block, that is why they were called sculptors. As for us, we are modellers. And what a disgraceful thing that casting from life is, which so many well-known sculptors do not blush to use! It is a mere swindling in art. Art was a vital function to the image-makers of the thirteenth century; they would hâve laughed at the idea of signing what they did, and never dreamed of honours and titles. When once their work was finished, they said no more about it, or else they talked among themselves. How curious it would hâve been to hear them, to be present at their gatherings, where they must hâve discussed in amusing phrases, and with simple, deep ideas!… Whenever the cathedrals disappear civilisation will go down one step. And even now we no longer understand them, we no longer know how to read their silent language. We need to make excavations not in the earth, but towards heaven…”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Auguste Rodin: The Man, His Ideas, His Works, 1905, p. 63-64; About the genius of the Gothic sculptors.

Roger Waters photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Since Sputnik, the earth has been wrapped in a dome-like blanket or bubble. Nature ended.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)

Rajiv Gandhi photo

“When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

Rajiv Gandhi, commenting on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots following the murder of Indira Gandhi, quoted in Hindustan Times
Quote
Source: 1984 anti-Sikh riots 'wrong', says Rahul Gandhi, Hindustan Times, 18 November 2008, 5 May 2012, yes, https://web.archive.org/web/20131012025532/http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/India/India/Article1-352523.aspx, 12 October 2013 http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/India/India/Article1-352523.aspx,

Terence McKenna photo
Joseph F. Smith photo
John of Patmos photo
Ignatius Sancho photo
Salvador Dalí photo
Gabriel García Márquez photo
R. A. Lafferty photo
John Angell James photo
Rufus Wainwright photo

“These are just the rules and regulations
Of the birds, and the bees
The earth, and the trees,
Not to mention the gods, not to mention the gods.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Rules and Regulations
Song lyrics, Release the Stars (2007)

Bill Mollison photo
Carl Sandburg photo
Rachel Carson photo

“We have been troubled about the world, and had almost lost faith in man; it helps to think about the long history of the earth, and of how life came to be. And when we think in terms of millions of years, we are not so impatient that our own problems be solved tomorrow.”

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

Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 96

James Taylor photo

“First kiss ever I took
Like a page from a romance book.
The sky opened and the earth shook.”

James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Copperline", written with Reynolds Price
Song lyrics, New Moon Shine (1991)

Alexander Grothendieck photo

“Out of night has come the day
Out of night, our small earth.
Our words drift away.
Our words journey
to find those who will listen.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, Amarantine (2005)

Vanna Bonta photo

“Imagine gazing at Earth or other space views.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

Basil of Caesarea photo
Melania Trump photo

“On July 28th 2006, I was very proud to become a citizen of the United States — the greatest privilege on planet Earth.”

Melania Trump (1970) Slovenian model, wife of Donald Trump and First Lady of the United States

Speech at 2016 Republican National Convention http://www.people.com/article/melania-trump-michelle-obama-similar-convention-speeches (July 18, 2016)

William Gilbert (astronomer) photo
Enda Kenny photo

“The greatest nation and most powerful nation on Earth.”

Enda Kenny (1951) Irish Fine Gael politician and Taoiseach

In reference to the United States, in a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama https://www.c-span.org/video/?324884-1/president-obama-meeting-irish-prime-minister-enda-kenny (March 2015)
2010s

Giuseppe Garibaldi photo

“The day the peasants will be educated in the truth, tyrants and slaves will be impossible on earth.”

Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) Italian general and politician

Il giorno in cui i contadini saranno educati nel vero, i tiranni e gli schiavi saranno impossibili sulla terra.
Alla Società del Tiro in Ganzo, Caprera, 29 August 1864, in Scritti politici e militari, ricordi e pensieri inediti, p. 356.

Jeremy Rifkin photo
Terence McKenna photo
David Icke photo
Jack Vance photo

“Every believer departing this old earth …immediately transitions into heaven and is welcomed home by Jesus himself.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 53

Richard Cobden photo

“We are on the eve of great changes…We have set an example to the world in all ages; we have given them the representative system. The very rules and regulations of this House have been taken as the model for every representative assembly throughout the whole civilised world; and having besides given them the example of a free press and civil and religious freedom, and every institution that belongs to freedom and civilisation, we are now about giving a still greater example; we are going to set the example of making industry free—to set the example of giving the whole world every advantage of clime, and latitude, and situation, relying ourselves on the freedom of our industry. Yes, we are going to teach the world that other lesson. Don't think there is anything selfish in this, or anything at all discordant with Christian principles. I can prove that we advocate nothing but what is agreeable to the highest behests of Christianity. To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest. What is the meaning of the maxim? It means that you take the article which you have in the greatest abundance, and with it obtain from others that of which they have the most to spare; so giving to mankind the means of enjoying the fullest abundance of earth's goods, and in doing so, carrying out to the fullest extent the Christian doctrine of 'Doing to all men as ye would they should do unto you.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (27 February 1846), quoted in John Bright and J. E. Thorold Rogers (eds.), Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P. Volume I (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908), p. 198.
1840s

Hilaire Belloc photo

“[N]othing is worthwhile on this unhappy earth except the fulfilment of a man's desire.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), p. 4

Lewis Black photo
John Greenleaf Whittier photo
Orson Pratt photo

“But by and by the time came when the Christian Church apostatized and turned away, and began to follow after their own wisdom, and the Prophets and Apostles ceased, so far as the affairs of the Christian Church on the earth were concerned. Revelations, and visions, and the various gifts of the spirit were also taken away, according to their unbelief and apostacy; but in the latter days God intends to again raise up a Christian Church upon the earth. Do not be startled, you who think that God will no more have a Church on the earth, for he has promised that he would again have one, and that he would set up his kingdom, and when he does you may look out for a great many Prophets and inspired men; and if you ever see a Church arise, calling itself a Christian Church, and it has not inspired Apostles like those in ancient times, you may know that it is a spurious church, and that it makes pretensions to something that it does not enjoy. If you ever find a church called a Christian Church that has no men to foretell future events, you may know, at once, that it is not a Christian Church. If you find a Christian Church that has not the ancient gifts, for instance the gift of healing, opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, causing the tongue of the dumb to speak and the lame to walk; if you ever find a people calling themselves a Christian Church and they have not these gifts among them, you may know with a perfect knowledge that they do not agree with the pattern given in the New Testament. The Christian Church is always characterized with inspired men, whose revelations are just as sacred as any contained in the Bible; and, if written and published, just as binding upon the human family. The Christian Church will always lay hands upon the sick in the name of Jesus, in order that the sick may be healed. The Christian Church will always have those among its members who have heavenly visions, the ministration of angels, and the various gifts that are promised according to the Gospel.”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 18:171-172 (March 26, 1876).
Apostacy

Gerald James Whitrow photo
George W. Bush photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Stephen Baxter photo
Edward Dorr Griffin photo
Omar Khayyám photo

“Said one among them — "Surely not in vain
My substance of the common Earth was ta'en
And to this Figure moulded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again."”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)

Syd Mead photo
Wilfred Owen photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Konrad Lorenz photo
James Hudson Taylor photo
Thomas Dekker photo

“The best of men
That e’er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.”

The Honest Whore (1604), Part i, Act i. Sc. 12. Compare: "Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth come Habraham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys; also the Kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne", Juliana Berners, Heraldic Blazonry.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Sarvajna photo

“From woman comes the new life on earth and woman is the source of all prosperity here and hereafter.”

Sarvajna Kannada poet, pragmatist and philosopher

Flowers of Wisdom

Fred Weatherly photo
Jane Addams photo

“… this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

Source: Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), Ch. 7