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Quote by Benjamin Percy

“It is a reminder of our irrelevant smallness and accidental existence in the universe, a glimpse of something violently outside the bounds of human existence, as close as you can get to seeing God.”

Quote by Benjamin Percy

Author

Benjamin Percy
Benjamin Percy

Benjamin Percy is an American writer born on March 28, 1979. His works encompass novels, short story collections, and essays, known for their unique narrative style and profound exploration of environmental issues. more

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“Contrary to popular belief, North America, and specifically the Great Lakes region, might be where metal technologies were first used by humans. Copper use emerged about 10,000 years ago. Sometime thereafter, people began to mine copper from the bedrock around Lake Superior, the remains of which can still be seen throughout the region today.”

“Look again at that (blue) dot (Earth seen from space). That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives...There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. 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.”

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

“...making relationships led to the historic intertribal agreements with the U.S. government to protect the cultural landscape of the Bears Ears as the first tribally focused national monument. Five different tribes nurtured relationships with the federal government to forever protect an earthly gift to be held in common. This was a transformative step toward healing a long history of colonial taking. That hopeful model of Indigenous economics was abruptly curtailed when Donald Trump reversed the decision and instead conveyed those sacred rights to a private uranium-mining company. It took an election to reverse it.”

“The universe—or at least the sentient constituents of it—comes to know itself through hermeneutic mediation. Put more personally, we come to know—and even become—ourselves through interacting with the world. You would not be able to recognize your own face if you had never seen it mirrored in a reflective surface or photographed.... Moreover, in very basic ways, we are permeable, such that with every breath and every meal we are constantly exchanging matter with our surroundings. All of this should begin to put pressure on the commonsense bifurcation between mental inside and physical outside.”