George Wald Quotes

We always have to remind ourselves of how fragile life on this planet is and what responsibilities we have.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience..... To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

It would be nice if all that exuberance and abundance was connected to a deep ethos of planetary responsibility.

Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.

Saving a life overrides territories.

The Anthropocentic Age - the first age in which humankind is the dominant species on the planet - cuts both ways: it is up to us to destroy or save the planet. We certainly have the ability.

Everyone lives downstream from someone else.

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God. Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world — of all living things. The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand. Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have. Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope.

A tiny blue dot set in a sunbeam. Here it is. That's where we live. That's home. We humans are one species and this is our world. It is our responsibility to cherish it. Of all the worlds in our solar system, the only one so far as we know, graced by life.

We are the curators of life on earth. We hold it in the palm of our hand.

We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.

But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. The process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.

We've been given this gift, our planet, and we've found no other place in the universe that we can inhabit. I want to do something to create radical change to help save it. It's our responsibility.

If we consider the superiority of the human species, the size of its brain, its powers of thinking, language and organization, we can say this: were there the slightest possibility that another rival or superior species might appear, on earth or elsewhere, man would use every means at his disposal to destroy it.

The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.

We do have responsibilities, as we live on this planet. It is our one and only home, which we are obligated to protect, to keep as beautiful and harmonious as it is. It is really for everyone to do so, including you and me.

We create the world in which we live; if that world becomes unfit for human life, it is because we tire of our responsibility.

What does our generation owe to generations yet unborn? ...there is an order in the universe which must be respected, and... the human person, endowed with the capability of choosing freely, has a grave responsibility to preserve this order for the well-being of future generations.

Each of us has a responsibility for the sustainability of our planet and each of us can make a difference if we choose to do so.

The future of mankind lies waiting for those who will come to understand their lives and take up their responsibilities to all living things.

We fit the universe through our brains and it comes out in the form of nothing less than poetry. We have a responsibility to awe.

I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence,' because I don't believe that I am non-violent. ... Right now, I would love to kill George Bush. I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die, the anger in me is just beyond belief. It's our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life.

You have to choose your future regrets.

Do we hate paradise so much we need to make sure it becomes a trash heap?

Ours is the responsibility to show our gratitude by the actions of our lives.