More Galaxies Than People

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
--Carl Sagan

Anxious Laughter

A sense of humor is a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge.

--Dave Barry

State of the Earth

Your Planet's Immune System Is Trying to Get Rid of You

--Kurt Vonnegut (an idea for a bumper sticker)

Shrub's Papa

I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

--George Herbert Walker Bush

Shared Happiness

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

--Gautama Buddha

Where Are We Going?

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

--Martin Buber

Rule of Life

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight--always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?

--J. M. Barrie

Beyond Good and Evil

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

Divine Things More Beautiful

The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first;
Be not discouraged--keep on--there are divine things, well envelop'd;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.

--Walt Whitman

Try to Feel Lucky

Try to have a good day today, wherever you are, whatever you do, whoever is near, if no one is near. Try to be happy, because you may not see tomorrow. There is someone this morning, who didn't wake up, who will never see this day. Try to feel lucky that this is not you.

--Margaret Cho

Faith vs. Doctrine

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

--Tony Benn

Transmute It

So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it.

--Bertrand Russell

It's Science, Stupid

There's nothing liberal about global warming, it's science. There seems to be some element of childish spite in the refusal to recognize it--"Boy, we can drive the liberals crazy by pretending it's not happening, ha, ha, ha."

--Molly Ivins

Pure Acts

The planting of trees is the least self-centered of all that we can do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children.

--Thornton Wilder

Skewed Perspective

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.

--Douglas Adams

Democracy Not Safe

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power.

--Franklin Delano Roosevelt

More Moral Values

I'm bound to a Bible where there are 3,000 verses on the poor, which means fighting poverty is a moral-values issue.

--Jim Wallis

The Universe Goes On Without Us

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born--a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on.

--Thomas Paine