The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the inevitable separation of humanity from Earth, emphasizing a mother's nurturing role and the eventual need to let go.
In this quote, Arthur C. Clarke personifies Earth as a mother that nurtures her children, humanity, and suggests that the time will come when she must part ways with them. This statement evokes a sense of sadness and inevitability regarding the fate of our planet and the future of humankind, encouraging reflection on our relationship with Earth and the impact of our actions on this home we must ultimately leave.
In practice
During a climate change conference to emphasize the urgency of environmental action.
Nowhere in space will we rest our eyes upon the familiar shapes of trees and plants, or any of the animals that share our world. Whatsoever life we meet will be as strange and alien as the nightmare creatures of the ocean abyss, or of the insect empire whose horrors are normally hidden from us by their microscopic scale.
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.
The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. The simplicity of nature is not that which may be easily read but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made.
If there hadn't been a sixth day, man would not exist; copper would always be copper; and lead just lead. It's true that everything has its Personal Legend, but one day that Personal Legend will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new Personal Legend, until, someday, the Soul of the World becomes one thing only.
In any closet, you can find it, if it is too small, or out of style, or there is just one of it where there should be two
Sacrifice is truly the crowning test of the gospel. Men are tried and tested in this mortal probation to see if they will put first in their lives the kingdom of God.
From the point of view of the meditative traditions the entire society is suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
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