World’s Greatest Minds Got Us Thinking!
ALBERT EINSTEIN. “The distinction between Past, Present and Future is a stubbornly persistent illusion … I want to know the mind of God, how he created this world, his thoughts, the rest are details.”
THE DALAI LAMA. “Even with all these profound scientific theories of the origin of the universe, I am left with questions, serious ones: What existed before the Big Bang? Where did the Big Bang come from? What caused it? Why has our planet evolved to support life?”
CARL JUNG. “All that I have learned has led me step by step to an unshakable conviction of the existence of God. I do not take his existence on belief … I know that he exists.”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL. “From the perspective of the source, the world is a majestic harmony of forms pouring into being, exploding, and dissolving. But what the swiftly passing creatures experience is a terrible cacophony of battle cries and pain.”
TEILHARD de CHARDIN. “We are not human beings having spiritual experiences, we are spiritual beings having human experiences.”
ECKHART TOLLE. “Yes, it’s true that we need to save the planet. But most of the problems, violence, pollution, war, terrorism, all have their origin in human consciousness or unconsciousness. So your primary responsibility is not doing anything outside you, it is your own state of consciousness. Once that is achieved, whatever you do and whomever you come into contact with get affected by your state of consciousness.”
JAMES INHOFE. “God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that human beings would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
ENRICO FERMI. “Where is everybody? Why do we see no signs of intelligence elsewhere in the universe?”
STEPHEN HAWKING. “One of the most serious consequences of our actions is global warming, the temperature increase may become self-sustaining, if it hasn’t done so already. The long-term future of the human race must be in space.”
ROBERT LAUGHLIN. “Far from being responsible for damaging the earth’s climate, civilization might not be able to forestall any of these terrible changes. Climate ought not to concern us too much, not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s beyond our power to control.”
JARED DIAMOND. “One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse,” they “share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power.” In “so many societies, the elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run and ruined themselves and societies in the long run.” They “managed to insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions … didn’t recognize they were making a mess until it was too late.”
ROBERT GORDON. “There was virtually no growth before 1750, and thus there is no guarantee that growth will continue indefinitely. The rapid progress made over the past 250 years could well turn out to be a unique episode in human history. One-time-only inventions.”
DAN ARIELY. “From a behavioral economics perspective, we are fallible, easily confused, not that smart, and often irrational … From this perspective, it is rather depressing … we are standing in front of a really difficult problem, but because people are just designed not to care about this … global warming will happen in the future … to other people.”
CLIVE HAMILTON. “Sometimes facing up to the truth is just too hard. When the facts are distressing it is easier to reframe or ignore them. Around the world only a few have truly faced up to the facts about global warming … It’s the same with our own deaths; we all ‘accept’ that we will die, but it is only when our death is imminent that we confront the true meaning of our mortality.”
