“In the visible world, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment; within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and of this speck our planet is a microscopic dot. On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded. They divide their time between labour designed to postpone the moment of dissolution for themselves and frantic struggles to hasten it for others of their kind.”

I came across this paragraph from Bertrand Russell’s Dreams and Facts and thought it was beautiful – a piece of poetry showing just how insignificant we are. Via Pete Singer’s post on The Guardian’s Comment is Free.

Posted Sunday, May 17th, 2009 @ 9:58 pm
Filed in community and social, science and tech

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