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Earth

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Not to be confused with Mother Nature.
The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb. —Romeo and Juliet

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System, in both diameter and mass. Home to myriad species including humans, it is also referred to as Gaia, Terra, Tellus, the World, the Globe, the Blue Marble or the Blue Planet.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Anonymous · See also · External links

A

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  • The earth is the source and the being of the people animals and fooooooooooooooooooooooooooood we NEEEED FOOD, and we are equally the being of the earth. The land is not really a place, separate from ourselves, where we act out the drama of our isolate destinies; the witchery makes us believe that false idea. The earth is not a mere source of survival, distant from the creatures it nurtures and from the spirit that breathes in us, nor is it to be considered an inert resource on which we draw in order to keep our ideological self functioning, whether we perceive that self in sociological or personal terms. We must not conceive of the earth as an ever-dead other that supplies us with a sense of ego identity by virtue of our contrast to its perceived nonbeing.
  • The globe of the Earth stands supportless in space... Just as the [spherical] bulb of a Kadamba flower is covered all around by blossoms, just so is the globe of the Earth surrounded by all creatures, terrestrial as well as aquatic.

B

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C

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  • Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
  • The earth was made so various, that the mind
    Of desultory man, studious of change
    And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.

E

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  • They witnessed the start of an era of unprecedented global consumption of living resources, the transformation of an earthly paradise 4.6 billion years in the making skimmed for the short-term service of a single insatiable species.
    • Sylvia Earle, about her parents and grandparents generations, in Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans (1995)
  • And again, observe ye the days of summer how the sun is above the earth over against it. And you seek shade and shelter by reason of the heat of the sun, and the earth also burns with growing heat, and so you cannot tread on the earth, or on a rock by reason of its heat.

F

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  • This poor world, the object of so much insane attachment, we are about to leave; it is but misery, vanity, and folly; a phantom, — the very fashion of which "passeth away."
    • François Fénelon, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 206.

G

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In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. —Genesis 1:1
  • Облетев Землю в корабле-спутнике, я увидел, как прекрасна наша планета. Люди, будем хранить и преумножать эту красоту, а не разрушать её!
    • Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!
    • Yuri Gagarin, Russian phrase, handwritten and signed after his historic spaceflight, photo of facsimile published in L. Lebedev, A. Romanov, and B. Luk'ianov, Syny goluboi planety, 3rd. ed. (1981); the 1st ed. was translated into English by L. A. Lebedev as Sons of the Blue Planet (1973)
  • The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not for every man's greed.
    • Mahatma Gandhi, as quoted in Pyarelal Nayyar, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. 10 (1958), p. 552 [1]
  • In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
    And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
    And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
  • The whole of creation was called into existence by God unto His glory, and each creature has its own hymn of praise wherewith to extol the Creator. Heaven and earth, Paradise and hell, desert and field, rivers and seas--all have their own way of paying homage to God. The hymn of the earth is, "From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, glory to the Righteous."
  • The sea said to the earth, "Take thy children unto thyself," and the earth retorted, "Keep those whom thou hast slain." The sea hesitated to do as the earth bade, for fear that God would demand them back on the day of judgement; and the earth hesitated, because it remembered with terror the curse that had been pronounced upon it for having sucked up Abel's blood. Only after God swore and oath, not to punish it for receiving the corpses of the Egyptians, would the earth swallow them.
    • Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1909)
  • "I am destined to become a curse, and to be cursed through man, and if God Himself does not take the dust from me, no one else shall ever do it."
    • Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1909)
  • "I have not the strength, to provide food for the herd of Adam's descendants."
    • Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1909)
  • "I am 'without form and void,' and then too I shall soon 'wax old like a garment.' How then should I venture to appear before the King of kings? Nay, thy fate is like mine, for 'dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'"
    • Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1909)
  • "I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken."
    • Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1909)
  • In the next century, planet earth will don an electronic skin. It will use the Internet as a scaffold to support and transmit its sensations. This skin is already being stitched together. It consists of millions of embedded electronic measuring devices: thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones, glucose sensors, EKGs, electroencephalographs. These will probe and monitor cities and endangered species, the atmosphere, our ships, highways and fleets of trucks, our conversations, our bodies — even our dreams.

H

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I

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  • They will not cause any harm
    Or any ruin in all my holy mountain,
    Because the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah
    As the waters cover the sea.
  • For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.

J

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Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? —Job 38:18
  • What have we done to the world, look what we've done
    What about all the peace that that you pledge your only son?
    What about flowering fields, is there a time?
    What about all the dreams that you said were yours and mine?
    Did you ever stop to notice all the children dead from war?
    Did you ever stop to notice the crying Earth, the weeping shores?
  • Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all. Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof?

K

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  • Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.
  • Until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it—grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.
    • Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), p. 327
  • No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of the earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is, and they would put an end to it. We are, after all, at a point where it is almost narrow-minded to think merely in geocentric terms. Human beings have launched satellites into outer space, and yet they still grovel on earth looking at their own feet like wild dogs. What is to become of our planet?

L

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  • I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our Nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible. It abounds all over the western country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and its development has scarcely commenced... Immigration, which even the war has not stopped, will land upon our shores hundred of thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point them to the gold and silver that waits for them in the West. Tell the miners from me, that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability; because their prosperity is the prosperity of the Nation, and we shall prove in a very few years that we are indeed the treasury of the world.
    • Abraham Lincoln, message for the miners of the West, delivered verbally to Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, who was about to depart on a trip to the West, in the afternoon of April 14, 1865, before Lincoln left for Ford's Theatre. Colfax delivered the message to a large crowd of citizens in Denver, Colorado, May 27, 1865. Reported in Edward Winslow Martin, The Life and Public Services of Schuyler Colfax (1868), pp. 187–88

M

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To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold—brothers who know now they are truly brothers. —Archibald MacLeish
  • To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold—brothers who know now they are truly brothers.
  • If we imagined that from now on, animals started emitting a red light every time they suffered, then from space, Earth would no longer be a blue planet, but a red and glowing one.
  • And certainly We have established you (mankind) upon the earth and made in it means of livelihood for you; little it is that you give thanks.
  • He said: Get forth, some of you, the enemies of others, and there is for you in the earth an abode and a provision for a time. He (also) said: Therein shall you live, and therein shall you die, and from it shall you be raised.
    • Muhammad, Quran 7:25-26 (tr. Maulvi Muhammad Ali, 1917)
  • Say: What! do you indeed disbelieve in Him who created the earth in two periods, and do you set up equals with Him: that is the Lord of the worlds? And He made in it mountains above its surface, and He blessed therein and made therein its foods, in four periods; alike for the seekers. Then He directed Himself to the heaven and it was a vapour, so He said to it and to the earth: Come both, willingly or unwillingly. They both said: We come willingly.
    • Muhammad, Quran 41:9-11 (tr. Maulvi Muhammad Ali, 1917)
  • And the earth, We have made it plain and cast in it mountains and We have made to grow therein of all beautiful kinds, To give sight and as a reminder to every servant who turns frequently (to Allah).
    • Muhammad, Quran 50:7-8 (tr. Maulvi Muhammad Ali, 1917)
  • And in the earth there are signs for those who are sure, And in your own souls (too); will you not then see?
    • Muhammad, Quran 51:20-21 (tr. Maulvi Muhammad Ali, 1917)

N

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  • The modern scientific counterpart to belief in God is the belief in the universe as an organism: this disgusts me. This is to make what is quite rare and extremely derivative, the organic, which we perceive only on the surface of the earth, into something essential, universal, and eternal! This is still an anthropomorphizing of nature!
  • And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

P

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The meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. —Psalms 37:11
  • I want people to look at the world and see what’s happening to it and take some action. This planet is so lovable. It is so various and so lovable, including all sorts of parts of the world that I’ve never seen, and I’ve seen more than most people. Just in what your eyes see, and how people live on the earth, it’s amazing, but it’s going to end if we don’t get our leaders to pay attention.
  • He is a lover of righteousness and justice. With the loving-kindness of Jehovah the earth is filled.
  • But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
  • Hope in Jehovah and follow his way,
    And he will exalt you to take possession of the earth.
    When the wicked are done away with, you will see it.
    • Psalms 37:34 (NWT)

R

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  • But the nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came, and the appointed time came for the dead to be judged and to reward your slaves the prophets and the holy ones and those fearing your name, the small and the great, and to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.

S

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Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. —Carl Sagan
  • That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there -- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
    The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
    Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
    • Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (New York: Random House, 1994), p. 8
  • The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we've learned most of what we know. Recently we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting.
    • Carl Sagan, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean" [Episode 1], 03 min 55 sec
  • We’ve done such a rotten job managing our own planet, we should be very careful before trying to manage others.
    • Carl Sagan, "Watching the World", in Awake! magazine (8 June 1999)
  • For naught so vile that on the earth doth live,
    But to the earth some special good doth give.
    • William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act II, scene iii
  • We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave—to the ancient enemies of man—half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.
    • Adlai Stevenson, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, last major speech, to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland (July 9, 1965); in Albert Roland, Richard Wilson, and Michael Rahill, eds., Adlai Stevenson of the United Nations (1965), p. 224

T

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  • Simonson, in rubber jacket and similar galoshes, bound with whip-cord over woolen socks (he was a vegetarian and did not use the skin of animals), was also awaiting the departure of the party. He stood near the entrance of the house, writing down in a note-book a thought that occurred to him. “If,” he wrote, “a bacterium were to observe and analyze the nail of a man, it would declare him an inorganic being. Similarly, from an observation of the earth’s surface, we declare it to be inorganic. That is wrong.”

V

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  • We are pilgrims, not settlers; this earth is our inn, not our home.
    • John Heyl Vincent, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 206
  • The crucified planet Earth,
    should it find a voice
    and a sense of irony,
    might now well say
    of our abuse of it,
    "Forgive them, Father,
    They know not what they do."
    The irony would be
    that we know what
    we are doing.

    When the last living thing
    has died on account of us,
    how poetical it would be
    if Earth could say,
    in a voice floating up
    perhaps
    from the floor
    of the Grand Canyon,
    "It is done."
    People did not like it here.

  • We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.
    • Kurt Vonnegut, in A Man Without a Country (2005)

W

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The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them. —Walt Whitman
  • The materials of wealth are in the earth, in the seas, and in their natural and unaided productions.
    • Daniel Webster, remarks in the Senate (March 12, 1838); The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (1903), vol. 8, p. 177
  • In this broad earth of ours,
    Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
    Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
    Nestles the seed perfection.
    • Walt Whitman, Song of the Universal, in Leaves of Grass

Anonymous

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  • Mâtâ bhûmih putro aham prthivyâh.
    • Earth is the Mother; I am the son of the Motherland
    • Atharva Veda, 12:1:12; quoted in Vasudeva S. Agrawala, "Vedic Conception of the Motherland: A Study in the Prthvī Sūkta of the Atharvaveda", B.C. Law Volume, pt. 1 (Calcutta: The Indian Research Institute, 1945), p. 373

See also

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