Tell us your favourite quotation and why.
“We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, 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.” –Adlai E. Stevenson, 1964
Maybe not my favorite quote (who has just one?), but I've always loved this quote and the idea behind it. I love how it links space exploration (which includes seeing the Earth from outside for the first time when the first Earth-observing satellites were launched and peopled-space missions began in the 1960s) to environmentalism. The idea that stepping away from the Earth makes one realize how fragile, precious, and unique it is.
I have the occasion to use this quote in class soon (it's actually in the textbook) and it reminds me of learning about the environmental movement when I was in college (20+ years ago!) I wonder if it will strike the same chord with the students- or maybe they've already learned about the "Spaceship Earth" in other classes and won't really think about it. Either way, I've enjoyed re-learning and remembering things from classes I took myself.
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