YouTube - Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

When I think back on the public figures that I miss from earlier times in my life, I reckon that I miss Carl Sagan as much as anyone, even Johnny Carson, even Churchill. Sagan had an unusual range of characteristics. He had the kindness of a caregiver, the acuity of a scientist, the eloquence of a poet, the presence of an actor, and the wonderment of a stoner. If you could custom-order your children, that would be just about the ultimate recipe.

"Look again at that dot. 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."