"An extraterrestrial visitor examing the differences among human society would find these 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 world... 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 atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth...
Our loyalties are to 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 wihich we spring.

We are one species.
We are star stuff harvesting star light."

Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

"What could be more inspiring than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us ?"

Edward O. Wilson