Carolina Quotesthere is a basic ethical attitude: respect for life, respect for other humans, certainly, but for all forms of life. It’s something that if everyone could just realize how special it is to be alive on this little blue speck in the universe, it’s a miracle that life exists at all and that we have a piece of time that is ours — whoever we are, shorter or longer, whatever it is, but — to really be a part of the action and to respect where we have come from, where we might be going.
Sylvia A. Earle Connected to the Carolinas
Source
No citation is recorded for this quotation.
- work
- with 'On Being' (2018)
- year
- 2018
no citation recorded
Cite this record
“there is a basic ethical attitude: respect for life, respect…” Sylvia A. Earle. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-595E208B51. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/595e208b51
More from Sylvia A. Earle
Curiously, those who claim to believe that the earth and all living things were created by God in fact appear to place greater value on human works and the judgment of mankind.
there’s a chemistry of life that has this capacity for enormous variation, maybe infinite variation. It’s a source of endless wonder and something that — it’s worth using our minds, that special gift that we have. There are other intelligent creatures out there — whales, dolphins, elephants, fish. Some of them are really smart. But they don’t know what we know. They can’t see the inside of a star or the inside of a starfish — except some of them, maybe, to eat them. But we have this power not only to explore, but we can go back in time. We can anticipate the future, far into the future. We can plot a course for ourselves based on intelligence. And the trick is: OK, homo sapiens, the smart ones, the wise ones — let’s take advantage of that capacity...Let’s put that into action and not just be like the bacteria on a dish that consume everything until they die. We don’t have to do that.
Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.