This Speech Will Change Your Life | Carl Sagan

From

this

distant point on Earth, it may seem like it has no special meaning, but for us it is different. Look at

this

little dot again, it's here, it's our home, it's us! Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of lives in it. All human beings, wherever they are, live their lives in that small point, the mixture between our joy and our suffering, the thousand religions followed by millions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and every blacksmith, every hero and every coward. . , every builder and destroyer of civilizations, every king and every peasant, every young man trapped in...

Love is every mother and every father, every ambitious child, every inventor and every explorer, every teacher of morality, every corrupt politician, every prominent star. , every great leader, every saint and every infidel in the history of humanity. He lived there on a speck of dust suspended in cosmic rays. The Earth is a small step in a vast cosmic arena. Let us think of the rivers made of blood that all these generals and emperors have shed due to the glory and triumph they obtain. momentarily by a small fraction of a small point. Think of the endless cruelty that has been committed by the residents of one corner at this point to other residents who are difficult to tell apart, but who live on another corner.

Between them, how much do they want to kill each other, how much do they hate each other? Our position, our imagination that we matter, our illusion that we have a privileged position in the universe, is challenged by that pale blue dot. Our planet is the only spot in this dark cosmic envelope in our mystery, in all this immensity. There is not even a hint that help

will

come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is the only world known so far capable of containing

life

. There is no other place, or at least in the near future, than humanity. we can migrate.

Should we visit it? Can we settle for that? It is not yet possible, whether we like it or not. Today, on Earth, wherever we take our stand, it is always said that astronomy brings humility and builds character. There may be no better illustration of the folly of human vanity than this. distant image of our little world, to me, emphasizes our responsibility to treat each other with affection and to preserve and cherish this pale blue dot, the only home we have always known.