““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...
Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the 'Momentary' masters of a 'Fraction' of a 'Dot' ”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Sounds like that dot has potential beyond all the other dots we know about. Got drive. Got passion. Perhaps a little ambitious and indecisive regarding it's goals, but it sounds like it's buzzing with momentum towards something. Good luck to it.
Loved Carl Sagan. Still miss his insight and intellect. Really enjoyed his books especially "The Dragons of Eden" & "Demon Haunted World". Also the old Cosmos tv series.
CS had a wonderful way with words, one of the greatest communicators and advocates for science, especially for the general public. My personal favorite.
He was mine as well, sad that he passed away. The famous picture that the “Pal Blue Dot” quote came from wasn’t even supposed to be taken. NASA didn’t see any scientific purpose to taking the picture but Carl was able to talk them into it and I’m glad he did. This picture was taken by the Galileo spacecraft from behind Saturn. Here is the original picture.