Quotes about earth
page 50

“[T]he King is God's immediate lieutenant upon earth; and therefore one and the same action is God's by ordinance, and the King's by execution. And the power which resides in the King is not any assuming to himself, nor any gift from the people, but God's power, as well in, as over, him.”

William Laud (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury

Source: Sermon at Whitehall (19 June 1625), quoted in The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Volume I: Sermons (1847), p. 94

God, People

“Christ himself would agitate against them. He would agitate against the plutocrats and hypocrites who tell workers to go down on their knees and get right with God. Christ, the carpenter’s son, would tell them to stand up on their feet and fight for righteousness and justice on earth.”

Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930) Irish-born American labor and community organizer

Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones

God, Justice, Christ, Fight

“Ten years on the moon could tell us more about the universe than a thousand years on the earth might be able to.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

What Can We Expect of the Moon?" in The American Legion Magazine, March 1965
General sources

Universe

“We burn with longing to find some firm stance, some ultimate, unshakable basis, on which we may build the tower that can reach up to infinity. But all our foundations crack and earth opens to the abyss. THEREFORE LET US NOT SEEK CERTAINTY OR SECURITY.”

Lev Shestov (1866–1938) Russian theologian

Source: In Job's Balances: on the sources of the eternal truths, Gethsemane Night - Pascal's Philosophy p. 284-285

“O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore begrudge me this bit of earth that covers my bones.”

Cyrus the Great (-600–-530 BC) King and founder of the Achaemenid Empire

Source: Epitaph of Cyrus, as quoted in Life of Alexander, in Plutarch : The Age of Alexander, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert (1973), p.326.

“The people of Earth did not understand that humans were part of a worldwide organism, that something as tiny as a cluster of bacteria could mean the difference between life and death for every living thing, the difference between a functioning, flourishing planet and a desolation.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 32, “I Am Gretamara/On Mars” (p. 272)

People, Understanding, Life, Death

“A court dedicated to pure justice, one that can overrule the law! They didn’t even have one of those back on old Earth!”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 10, “I Am Wilvia/On B’Yurngrad” (p. 69)

Justice, Law

“Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 21

World, Parting

“That which had grown from the earth, to the earth, But that which has sprung from heavenly seed, Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient elements.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 50

“Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book III, 10

Past, Life

“Light, my light, the world-filling light,
the eye-kissing light,
the heart-sweetening light!
Ah, the light dances and the sky opens,
the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth,
the light is generosity, is shattered into gems,
and it scatters its golden aura in profusion”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://twitter.com/AKarpouzos/status/1459547844180951043

Light, World, Kiss, Heart

“To the Nicaraguans, to the Central Americans, to the Indo-Hispanic Race:
The man who doesn't ask his country for even a handful of earth for his grave deserves to be heard, and not only to be heard, but also to be believed.”

Augusto Sandino (1895–1934) Nicaraguan revolutionary

Source: The San Albino Manifesto (July 1, 1927)

Country

“If only the Earth would open and swallow you up.”

Brother Theodore (1906–2001) German-American monologuist and comedian

[Brother Theodore Complete Collection on Letterman, 1982-89, Don Giller, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj5fVnHWUl4]

“When Allah has decided to take the message to all the corners of earth, who on earth can prevent this progress.”

Mirza Masroor Ahmad (1950) spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Eid and Friday Sermons Source: Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya https://www.alislam.org/friday-sermon/2013-05-24.html, Friday Sermon May 24th, 2013

“This nagging dilemma has come to be known as the excess sulfur problem... Just as atmospheric scientists were beginning to grasp the importance of a volcano's sulfur emmisions, solid earth scientists were finding that they had no idea where all this sulfur was coming from.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

Problem, Idea

“The dynamic earth has been spewing out the constituents of evolution and progress throughout its history, nurturing all species from the very first forms of life to our own.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

History, Life

“God wanted to make heaven and the earth is that heaven. Nowhere in the universe there is so much love, life, beauty and peace. Enjoy your stay with the fellow beings.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Source: Meditation:Insights and Inspirations (2010) https://books.google.com/books?id=s2ctBgAAQBAJ,

God, Peace, Beauty, Universe

“The same man who could not find it in his conscience to curb his curiosity into the nuclear studies that might someday kill half of Earth would risk his life to save that of an unimportant felllow man.”

Isaac Asimov book Pebble in the Sky

Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), Pebble in the Sky (1950), Chapter 1 "Between One Footsep and the Next" (p. 6)

Study, Life

“What they do, no authority upon earth can undo.”

William Blackstone book Commentaries on the Laws of England

Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769) Context: Book I, ch. 2 https://lonang.com/library/reference/tucker-blackstone-notes-reference/tuck-202/: Of the Parliament.

“No nation on earth can vie with the Hindus in respect of the antiquity oftheir civilization and the antiquity of their religion.”

Magnus Björnstjerna (1779–1847) Swedish count and general (1779-1847)

Source: quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Tribute_to_Hinduism.html?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ Context: ... "In a metaphysical point of view we fmd among the Hindus all the fundamental ideas of those vast systems which, regarded merely as the offspring offantasy, nevertheless inspire admiration on account of the boldness of flight and of the faculty of human mind to elevate itself to such remote ethereal regions. We find among them all the principles of Pantheism, Spinozism and Hegelianism, of God as being one with the universe; spiritual life of mankind; and of the return of the emanative sparks after death to their divine origin; of the uninterrupted alternation between life and death, which is nothing else but a transition between different modes of existence. All this we find among the philosophies of the Hindus exhibited as clearly as by our modem philosophers more than three thousand years since.

Religion

“I think the greatest oxymoron on the face of this earth is to use the word 'science' along with 'evolution.'”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

Evolution's a fairy tale for grown ups... It's unprovable, it's not been proved.
Source: AronRa vs Ray Comfort (September 17th, 2012), Radio Paul's Radio Rants

Thinking, Science

“It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival... It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.”

Buckminster Fuller book Critical Path

Source: From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

Selfishness

“Love is the only shocking act left on the face of the earth.”

Sandra Bernhard (1955) American actress

Source: First line from her autobiography, Love, Love and Love (June 1993)

Love

“We (Ecuador) may be a small territory... but the planet (earth) is also ours.”

Guillermo Lasso (1955) President of Ecuador

Source: Guillermo Lasso (2021) cited in: " Ecuador expands sea life protections around Galapagos https://phys.org/news/2022-01-ecuador-sea-life-galapagos.html" in phys.org, 15 January 2022.

“Now a bit of praise isn't much to give,
But it's dear to the hearts of all who live;
And there's never a man on this good old earth
But is glad to be told that he's been of worth;
And a kindly word when the work is fair
Is welcomed and wanted everywhere.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

If I Were a Boss, third stanza.
Source: The Passing Throng (1923)

Heart

“From the looks you're giving me
I can tell, as well see
if I've done something you think's wrong:
no words need be conveyed.
Then again, when we embrace,
from the look that's on your face
if heaven is a place on earth
right here is where it's been.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"No Way" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "No Way" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5mPUlZ4vRE (song on YouTube)

Thinking

“The knowledge we get by tinkering, via trial and error, experience, and the workings of time, in other words, contact with the earth, is vastly superior to that obtained through reasoning, something self-serving institutions have been very busy hiding from us.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Skin in the Game

Source: Skin in the Game (2018), p. 7

Time, Business, Error, Knowledge

“The highest degree of knowledge. To become a Buddha one has to break through the bondage of sense and personality; to acquire a complete perception of the REAL SELF and learn not to separate it from all otherselves; to learn by experience the utter unreality of all phenomena of the visible Kosmos foremost of all; to reach a complete detachment from all that is evanescent and finite, and live while yet on Earth in the immortal and the everlasting alone, in a supreme state of holiness.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) occult writer

Buddha (Sk.). Lit., “The Enlightened.”
The Theosophical Glossary (1892)

Personality, Learning, Knowledge, Sense

“This is called the World Breath or ‘Seven’ Breath, and was much practised by the ancient Egyptians who were adepts at physical and physiological culture. Seven, as you know, plays an important part in the plan of the Universe which affects tnis Earth, as for instance, the 7 planets, 7 colours of the spectrum, 7 notes of music, 7 days of the week, etc. If we practise the Seven Breath every morning on awakening, we will tune ourselves in to the forces of growth and progress and derive great benefit and strength from so doing, provided we neither strain nor jerk.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XV The Essential Science of Breathing

Universe, World, Music, Jerk

“Men talk too much of gold and fame,
And not enough about a name;
And yet a good name's better far
Than all earth's glistening jewels are.
Who holds his name above all price
And chooses every sacrifice
To keep his earthly record clear,
Can face the world without a fear.Who never cheats nor lies for gain,
A poor man may, perhaps, remain,
Yet, when at night he goes to rest,
No little voice within his breast
Disturbs his slumber. Conscience clear,
He falls asleep with naught to fear
And when he wakes the world to face
He is not tainted by disgrace.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: The Path to Home (1919), p.143 - A Good Name, stanzas 1 and 2.

Cheating, Night, Men, World

“Our species is prone to a flattering view of itself. Humans have regarded themselves as the pinnacle of creation, formed by and in the image of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God, and inhabiting a planet at the center of the universe—a planet around which all others revolve. Science has done much to debunk some of these ideas. We now know that our planet is not at the center of the universe: the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa. And we know—or at least some of us do—that we are Johnny-come-lately products of a long, blind evolutionary process.”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Permissible Progeny? The Morality of Procreation and Parenting (2015) Source: Chapter 1: The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism https://books.google.com/books?id=J6dBCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA44&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false (2015), p. 35-36

God, Universe, Idea, Science

“Your woman: always love her as the only priority on Earth.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La tua donna: amala sempre come unica priorità sulla Terra.
Source: prevale.net

Love

“Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.”

Louise Glück The Wild Iris

Source: "The Wild Iris" 1992

Sun

“We are nothing on earth if we are not in the first place the slaves of a cause, the cause of the peoples, the cause of justice and liberty.”

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) Martiniquais writer, psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary

Source: Letter to Roger Tayeb, December 1961, as cited in Peter Geismar, Fanon (1971), p. 185.

Justice, People

“Gnostic has an elevated spiritual rank. He eats less, sleeps less and repose less. He is like shinning moon who radiates others and bears the burden of everything on earth, shows right path like light and saturates the heart like water giving it new life.”

Sari al-Saqati (772–867) Iraqi sufi

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam, p. 43

Sleep, Light, Water, Heart

“I'm usin' smarter tactics to overcome this slum
I won't become as dumb as some and succumb to scum
It's cumbersome, I'm tryin' to do well on this Earth
But it's been hell on this Earth since I fell on this Earth”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"It's O.K."
1990s, Infinite (1996)

Hell

“Earth governments in moments of stress are not famous for being reasonable.”

Isaac Asimov book History

Source: Short fiction, The Early Asimov Book One (1972), History (p. 297)

“Rest now—and weep—thou praised of Earth!
And own, when all is done,
A world's false worship is not worth
The deep tried love of one.”

Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye (1807–1867) British songwriter, composer, poet and author

"Fame", line 25; p. 141.
Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

Falseness, World, Love

“Thou mourner for departed dreams!
On earth there is no rest
When grief hath troubled the pure streams
Of memory in thy breast!”

Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye (1807–1867) British songwriter, composer, poet and author

"Disenchanted!", line 41; p. 139.
Songs, Poems, & Verses (1894)

Dreams, Memory

“You say we are Chinese, and they say we are Americans, but if we look at the planets from space and think about the future of mankind, we have only one identity, that is, we are all citizens of the Earth.”

Qin Gang (1966) politician

"Ambassador Qin: China, U.S. should work together to promote interest of mankind" in CGTN https://newsus.cgtn.com/news/2022-04-12/CGTN-exclusive-interview-with-Ambassador-Qin-Gang-199PKD3NXSU/index.html (12 April 2022)

Future, Thinking

“The buddha nature, or tathagatagarbha, is present in all beings, but is hidden by obscurations, in the same way that buried gold is hidden by the earth under which it lies. As you listen to, reflect, and meditate on the Dharma, all the inherent qualities of your buddha nature will be actualized.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

The Heart of Compassion (2006)

Nature, Way

“[…] Abrupt climate change may be normal in the planet's history, or, to state it differently, that the earth's [sic] climate is inherently very unstable.”

James Howard Kunstler book The Long Emergency

Source: The Long Emergency (2005), Chapter 5, p. 149.

History, Change

“I do not advocate neglecting your parents: honour and succour them, especially in their old age, but don’t stay at home and do housework when you long, body and soul, to fly to the uttermost ends of the earth, there to find your mission in life and your gift to the world.”

Stella Wolfe Murray (1886–1935) British journalist and writer

Quoted in MILLWARD, L. (2007). Women in British Imperial Airspace: 1922-1937 https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt819g2. McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Home, Soul, Age, Flying

“Goodness is the face of Godliness. I think that to be good in reality, in the innermost recesses of one’s heart, is not easy, though it may appear to be simple as a teaching. It is one of the hardest things on earth, if only one would be honest with oneself.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

What Life Has Taught Me
Autobiography of Swami Sivananda (1958)

Heart, Thinking, Appearance, Reality

“I think that to safeguard the earth and maintain its great heritage it is important to exalt human responsibility, because the only being responsible for the other beings is man. Nothing less can come about from his humanity and his responsibility.”

Elio Sgreccia (1928–2019) Catholic cardinal

Christian Personalism's Place in Bioethics https://zenit.org/2004/07/06/christian-personalism-s-place-in-bioethics/ (6 July 2004)

Thinking

“Forty million refugees with no place on this earth to call their home
One for every aimless graduate with nothing else to show for it but loans
Those of us who make a mark use someone else's blood.
Our western stain won't wash away; it won't vanish in the flood.”

Kevin Devine (1979) Songwriter and musician

" The Burning City Smoking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3YmL6Fc3K4," Put Your Ghost to Rest (2006)

Home

“Nobody out here was going to find an alternative here to Earth’s tiresome clash of selfish individualisms and stifling collectivisms.”

Gregory Benford book The Sunborn

The Sunborn (2005), Part II, Chapter 5, “A Day at the Beach” (p. 114)

Selfishness

“On behalf of all those dead
who learned their hatred of women long ago,
for those who hate them now, for those unborn
who shall live to hate them yet, I now declare
my firm conviction: neither earth nor ocean
produces a creature as savage and monstrous
as woman.”

Euripidés book Hecuba

Hecuba (424 BC), lines 1177-1182. [Euripides, William Arrowsmith (translated by), Grene, David, Lattimore, Richmond, Euripides III: Four Tragedies, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA, 0226307824, paperback] Variant ( tr. Jay Kardan and Laura-Gray Street (2010) http://didaskalia.net/issues/8/32/): Let me tell you, if anyone in the past has spoken ill of women, or speaks so now or will speak so in the future, I’ll sum it up for him: Neither sea nor land has ever produced a more monstrous creature than woman.

Hate, Learning, Dead, Women

“There is only one door, one bridge, one ladder, between earth and heaven,—the crucified Son of God.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Vol. III, John XIV: 4–11, p. 60
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. John (1865–1873)

God

“Man is one name belonging to every nation upon earth. In them all is one soul though many tongues. Every country has its own language, yet the subjects of which the untutored soul speaks are the same everywhere.”

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

De Testimonio Animae (The Testimony of the Soul), 6.3 The Soul's Testimony https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0309.htm Original: (la) Omnium gentium unus homo, uarium nomen est, una anima, uaria uox, unus spiritus, uarius sonus, propria cuique genti loquella, sed loquellae materia communis.

Soul, Country

“A new reality is being formed: the unipolar world is irrevocably becoming a thing of the past, a multipolar one is taking shape. It’s an objective process. It’s unstoppable. In this reality, more than one power will “rule” it will be necessary to negotiate between all the key states that today have a decisive influence on the world economy and politics. At the same time, realizing their special situation, these countries ensure compliance with the basic principles of the UN Charter, including the fundamental one – the sovereign equality of states. No one on this Earth should be seen as a minor player. Everyone is equal and sovereign.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

As quoted in Meet the New, Resource-Based Global Reserve Currency https://www.unz.com/pescobar/meet-the-new-resource-based-global-reserve-currency/, 31 March 2022

Country, Reality, Decision, World

“People here in the neighborhood are saying she had no business going to Mars, anyway. All that money wasted on another crazy space trip when so many people here on earth can’t afford water, food, or shelter”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), p. 17

Money, People, Water, Food

“Hope to see a better human nature on earth.”

Kazeronnie Mak

Hope, Nature

“One could not overshoot a planet’s carrying capacity without disaster following—that was what Earth’s history since the nineteenth century existed to prove.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 12, “It Goes So Fast” (p. 621)

History

“Like every people on earth, my compatriots want to live in a democratic country, without fear for their future and the life and destiny of coming generations.”

Leonid Kuchma (1938) Second president of Ukraine

Speech at the 55th session of the United Nations General Assembly (excerpts) (2000)

Life, Country, Future, People

“The soul of any civilization on earth has ever been and still is Art and Religion, but neither has ever been found in commerce, in government of the police.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

A Testament (1957)

Soul, Religion, Art

“I love my life, I like to be cosmopolitan, I would like to visit the whole earth and love it all.”

Annie Ernaux book Mémoire de fille

Quoted in Dissolve by Nikki Gemmell (Hachette UK, 2021)
A Girl's Story (2016)

Love, Life

The quote is mistakenly attributed to the author

“The earth has its music for those who will listen.”

Reginald Vincent Holmes

Often misattributed to Shakespeare, because the words remind us of “If music be the food of love play on”. Statement is also commonly associated with Santayana, but no source or attribution can be found in his works or correspondence.
Variant: The earth has music for those who listen.
Source: Book Fireside Fancies, Poem The Magic of Sound. 1955.
Context: I've heard the soft whisper of wind in the pine trees,
The silvery ripple of brooklets at play;
I've heard the low voice of a sweet singing mother
As she sang to her child at the end of the day.

I've heard the faint rustle of sails in the sunset
And blue waves caressing the wild, rockbound shore;
The whistle of trains as they cross the green prairie
And mountains re-echo the cataract’s roar.

The notes of the organs in ancient cathedrals,
Where hearts of the faithful are lifted in song;
I've heard the gay laughter as children were playing,
The chatter and buzz of a large, happy throng.

The earth has its music for those who will listen;
Its bright variations forever abound.
With all of the wonders that God has bequeathed us,
There's nothing that thrills like the magic of sound.