We are blessed with a magnificent and miraculous world ocean on this planet. But we are also stressing it in ways that we are not even close to bringing under control.
Carl SafinaRead
Maybe we’ll live to see sharks recover. Right now, that seems as improbable as seeing all these falcons. Hope is the ability to see how things could be better. The world of human affairs has long been a shadowy place, but always backlit by the light of hope. Each person can add hope to the world. A resigned person subtracts hope. The more people strive, the more change becomes likely.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Hope is essential for envisioning a better future and driving positive change.
This quote emphasizes the significance of hope in our lives and the world around us. Carl Safina asserts that amidst challenging circumstances, such as the decline of certain species, hope allows us to imagine improvement and fosters a collective effort toward positive change. The quote suggests that each individual's hope contributes to the greater good and that passive resignation only diminishes that hope. By striving for better outcomes, we can influence the world positively and facilitate transformation.
Themes
HopeChangeFutureEffortImprovement
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one could use this quote to inspire action and commitment.
More from Carl Safina
All quotes →Whether on'e special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.
Carl SafinaRead
[About reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, age 14, in the back seat of his parents' sedan. I almost threw up. I got physically ill when I learned that ospreys and peregrine falcons weren't raising chicks because of what people were spraying on bugs at their farms and lawns. This was the first time I learned that humans could impact the environment with chemicals. [That a corporation would create a product that didn't operate as advertised] was shocking in a way we weren't inured to.
Carl SafinaRead
The compass of compassion asks not what is good for me? but what is good? Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not how much can we take? but How much ought we leave? and how much might we give? Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral.
Carl SafinaRead
Economists don't seem to have noticed that the economy sits entirely within the ecology.
Carl SafinaRead
A painting is nothing more than light reflected from the surface of a pigment-covered canvas. But a great painter can make you see the depth, make you feel the underlying emotion, make you sense the larger world. That, too, is the power of science: to sense and convey the depth and dimensionality of nature, to glance at the surface and to divine the shape of the universe around us.
Carl SafinaRead
Similar quotes
No sign, so far, of anything sinister—but I live in hope.
Agatha ChristieRead
Hope is in some respects a thing more brilliant, more vivifying, than fruition. What we have looked forward to with eager and earnest aspiration is never in all respects equal to the picture we had formed of it. The very uncertainty enhances the enjoyment.
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I'm not pessimistic about Africa. The cities just seem big and hopeless. But there's still a great green heart where there's possibility. There's hope in the wilderness.
Paul TherouxRead
While there's life, there is hope.
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The cross means there is no shipwreck without hope; there is no dark without dawn; nor storm without haven.
Pope John Paul IiRead
I have hope for you, if only because you're the only one left to hope for.
Orson Scott CardRead