Earth

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 "the Earth", "Planet Earth", "Gaia", "Terra", and "the World".

Sourced

• 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.

• We are pilgrims, not settlers; this earth is our inn, not our home.
  • J. H. Vincent, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 206.

Unsourced

• And among His Signs Is the creation of the heavens And the earth, and the variations In your languages And your colors; verily In that are Signs For those who know
  • Quran (c. 651 AD)

• ...by the late eighteenth century scientists knew very precisely the shape and dimensions of the earth and its distance from the Sun and planets; and now Cavendish, without even leaving home, had given them its weight. So you might think that determining the age of the Earth would be relatively straightforward. After all, the necessary materials were literally at their feet. But no. Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their own planet.
  • Bill Bryson, *A Short History of Nearly Everything

• Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed
  • Mahatma Gandhi

• Every Winter, When the great sun has turned his face away, The earth goes down into a vale of grief, And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables
  • Charles Kingsley

• I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
  • Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

• It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
  • Neil Armstrong

• Take what you can use and let the rest go by
  • Ken Kesey

• The best investment on earth is earth.
  • Louis J. Glickman

• The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church
  • Ferdinand Magellan This quote should be attributed to Robert Green Ingersoll who is the real author of the quote. There is no document where you can find Magellan uttered or wrote those words.

• The earth is what we all have in common.
  • Wendell Berry

• 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 earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged
  • William Cowper

• The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future
  • Marya Mannes, American Writer (1904-1990)

• The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls.
  • Carl Sagan

• The whole earth has been made a mosque and pure for me.
  • Muhammad, Bukhari, www.alislam.org

• Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find resources of strength that will endure as long as life lasts
  • Rachel Carson

• Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.
  • Rachel Carson

• To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold - brothers who know now they are truly brothers.
  • Archibald MacLeish

• Who will speak for Planet Earth?
  • Carl Sagan

• Mostly Harmless.
  • Douglas Adams

• Earth's creation is not a piece of knowledge, it is what we rely on.
  • Steven Rawn, Plutonium Party politician