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Martians Quotes

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Martians Quotes

“For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things—taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many—those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance—our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.”

Science FictionNatural SelectionBacteriaMartiansAlien Invasion
Book:The War of the Worlds
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“We decided to become development psychologists and study children because there aren't any Martians. These brilliant beings with the little bodies and big heads are the closest we can get to a truly alien intelligence (even if we may occasionally suspect that they are bent on making us their slaves.)”

ChildrenMartiansDevelopment Psychology
Book:The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind
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“We decided to become developmental psychologists and study children because there aren't any Martians. These brilliant beings with the little bodies and big heads are the closest we can get to a truly alien intelligence (even if we may occasionally suspect that they are bent on making us their slaves.)”

ChildrenMartiansDevelopmental Psychology
Book:The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind
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“Ridiculous as our market volatility might seem to an intelligent Martian, it is our reality and everyone loves to trot out the 'quote' attributed to Keynes (but never documented): 'The market can stay irrational longer than the investor can stay solvent.' For us agents, he might better have said 'The market can stay irrational longer than the client can stay patient.'”

SaidRealitySeemsMightIntelligentPatientRidiculousAgentsInvestorsClientsIrrationalOne LoveMartiansVolatilityKeynes
Author:Jeremy Grantham
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“Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists.”

PeopleIfsThinkingSufferingWonderPlanetsScientistDrivingAliensMarsOur PlanetFeverTreatiesJupiterKyotoMartiansSuvsColonizing Mars
Author:Fred Thompson
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“If we make this readjustment to view Homo sapiens as an ultimate in oddball rarity, and life at bacterial grade as the common expression of a universal phenomenon, then we could finally ask the truly fundamental question raised by the prospect of Martian fossils. If life originates as a general property of the material universe under certain conditions (probably often realized), then how much can the basic structure and constitution of life vary from place to independent place?”

IfsCertainUniverseAsksViewsCommonConditionsExpressionMaterialsUltimateUniversalConstitutionIndependentFundamentalsStructurePropertyRaisedGradesPhenomenonFossilsVaryHomo SapiensRarityMartiansOddballs
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“Since the universe must contain millions of appropriate planets, consciousness in some form - but not with the paired eyes and limbs, and the brain built of neurons in the only example we know - may evolve frequently. But if only one origin of life in a million ever leads to consciousness, then Martian bacteria most emphatically do not imply Little Green Men.”

IfsKnowsMenMayLittlesEyeFormUniverseBrainConsciousnessMillionsExamplePlanetsBuiltGreenEvolveAppropriateLimbsNeuronsBacteriaOrigin Of LifeMartians
Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History
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“Before we go there and set up greenhouses, dance clubs, and falafel stands, let's make sure that, in some subtle form that could be harmed by the human hubbub, life does not already exist there. If not, then by all means build cities, plant forests and fill lakes and streams with trout -- bring life to Mars and Mars to life. We'll then be the Martians we've been dreaming about for all these years.”

IfsYearsHumansMeanDoeDreamFormCitiesPlantClubsForestsStreamsLakesSubtleMarsGreenhousesTroutMartians
Author:David Grinspoon
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“Like many people, I have no religion, and I am just sitting in a small boat drifting with the tide. I live in the doubts of my duty.... I think there is dignity in this, just to go on working.... Today we stand naked, defenseless, and more alone than at any time in history. We are waiting for something, perhaps another miracle, perhaps the Martians. Who knows?”

PeopleThinkingKnowsTodayWaitingDoubtAtheismDutyGoes OnSittingDignityMiraclePositive AtheismNakedBoatTidesDriftingDefenselessMartiansWaiting For Something
Author:Federico Fellini
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“He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word - such as grok which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word.”

ShouldTryingHumansLongReligionEasyWaterKnownForeverChangedBrotherShould HavePatternsLiftsKnivesUnpredictableSlipperyMartiansShould Have KnownShort WordsShould Have Known Better
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“Astronomy is so easy to love. ... Fairly or not, physics is associated with nuclear bombs and nuclear waste, chemistry with pesticides, biology with Frankenfood and designer-gene superbabies. But astronomers are like responsible ecotourists, squinting at the scenery through high-quality optical devices, taking nothing but images that may be computer-enhanced for public distribution, leaving nothing but a few Land Rover footprints on faraway Martian soil, and OK, OK, maybe the Land Rover, too.”

MayScienceEasyQualityLandWasteComputerResponsibleLeavingNuclearPhysicsAstronomyDesignerSoilBombsBiologyDevicesChemistryGenesDistributionFootprintSceneryHigh QualityAstronomersNuclear BombMartiansPesticidesNuclear WasteSquinting
Author:Natalie Angier
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“This influential, yet controversial idea requires that the mixture of species on Earth at any moment acts as a collective organism that continuously (yet unwittingly) tunes Earth's atmospheric composition and climate to promote the presence of life... But I'd bet there are some dead Martians and Venusians who advanced the same theory about their own planets a billion years ago.”

YearsIdeasMomentsEarthSciencePlanetsTheoryYears AgoClimateSpeciesBillionsTunesCollectivesCompositionOrganismsMixturesInfluentialControversialMartians
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
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“If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do.”

PeopleIfsWorldGivingHumansCareCultureFoundLostLinesLevelsCitiesBloodMountainTrainDon't CareExceptionCrashEmergenciesEarthquakesSuppliesCoordinatesMartiansHikerGiving Blood
Author:Andy Weir
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“In 1990 I did a story with Helena Christensen about a woman who lives in a trailer in the middle of the desert and finds a little crushed UFO with a martian who has survived the crash. She takes him home, and they fall in love. Later he has to meet with his fellow martians who have arrived to rescue him. It's a sad ending. This was my first truly narrative story and apparently the first narrative story in fashion photography.”

FirstsLittlesStoriesHomeFallMiddleFashionPhotographyFellowsFalling In LoveDesertNarrativeRescueCrashSurvivedCrushedUfoTrailersMartiansSad EndingFashion Photography
Author:Peter Lindbergh
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“I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel.With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away.”

MenMindFirstsWould BeRunningFeltAnimalWatchesClearMastersGrewEmpiresHeelsOppressedApocalypsePersuasionPassed AwayMartians
Book:H. G. Wells The Dover Reader
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“Around the time of the Terran Caesar Augustus, a Martian artist had been composing a work of art. It could have been called a poem, a musical opus, or a philosophical treatise; it was a series of emotions arranged in tragic, logical necessity. Since it could be experienced by a human only in the sense in which a man blind from birth might have a sunset explained to him, it does not matter which category it be assigned.”

MenHumansDoeHas BeensArtMatterMightArtistEmotionBirthPhilosophicalBlindSeriesMusicalSunsetTragicLogicalWorks Of ArtCategoriesCould Have BeenComposingAugustusMartiansAugustus Caesar
Book:Stranger in a Strange Land
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“[William] Eggleston's photographs look like they were taken by a Martian who lost the ticket for his flight home and ended up working at a gun shop in a small town near Memphis. On the weekend he searches for the ticket - it must be somewhere - with a haphazard thoroughness that confounds established methods of investigation.”

LooksHomeLostTakenGunTownsMethodPhotographFlightShopsWeekendInvestigationTicketsSmall TownMartiansMemphisHaphazardThoroughness
Author:Geoff Dyer
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“Here's an easy one: "Race is an entirely social construct." No, it's partially one, depending on how any given society seeks to define it and its implications. But there are basic things such as skin color and hair texture. Even a Martian who'd had no exposure to human "social constructs" would be able to spot those differences. But no Martian, as hard as he tried, could point at a "culture" or to "equality." Those are the social constructs. Those can't be measured in the same way as human DNA.”

WayHumansHardWould BeAbleCultureGivenSocialEasyDifferencesRaceColorHairSkinsSpotsConstructsDnaExposureImplicationsTextureSkin ColorMartiansBasic Things
Author:Jim Goad
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