"An extraterrestrial visitor examining the differences among human societies
would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities.
Our lives, our past and our future are tied to the sun, the moon and the stars...
We humans have seen the atoms which constitute all of nature and the forces that
sculpted this work..and we, who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and
feelings of the cosmos, have begun to wonder about our origins...star stuff
contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion
atom, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it
arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth...Our loyalties are to the
species and to the planet. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not
just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring.
We are one species. We are the star stuff harvesting star light."
-- Carl Sagan 1934-1996