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from this distant vantage point the
earth might not seem of any particular
interest but for us it's different
consider again that dot that's here
that's home that's us on it everyone you
love everyone know everyone you ever
heard of every human being who ever was
lived out their lives the aggregates 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 and 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 movers
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
the earth the only world known so far to
harbor life there is nowhere else at
least in the near future to which our
species could migrate
visit yes settle not yet like it or not
for the moment and earth is where we
make our stand
it has been said that astronomy is a
humbling and character-building
experience there is perhaps no better
demonstration of the folly of human
conceits than this distant image of our
tiny world to me
and the score is our responsibility to
deal more kindly with one another and to
preserve and cherish the pale blue dot
the only home we've ever known
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you
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