“Through the greatness of the universe, which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.” 

Bertrand Russell

“Our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them. Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate.”

Seneca, First Century CE

“Only through understanding the universe can we understand ourselves or our proper role in the great community of existence.”

Thomas Berry

“We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution.”

Carl Sagan

It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.

Albert Einstein

“There is grandeur in this view of life, that from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

John Muir

“The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears, and to speculate about the consequences of our own presence here.“

James Lovelock

“Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”

Rachel Carson

“The greatest unsolved mysteries are the mysteries of our existence as conscious beings in a small corner of a vast universe.”

Freeman Dyson

“Man is unable to see himself entirely unrelated to mankind, neither is he able to see mankind unrelated to life, nor life unrelated to the universe.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity.”

Wole Soyinka

“When we come to it 
We must confess that we are the possible 
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world 
That is when, and only when 
We come to it. “

Maya Angelou