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We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave - to the ancient enemies of man - half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.

Adlai Stevenson#77

CooperationSurvivalUnityEnvironmentEarth

About this quote

What does it mean?
Compares Earth to a fragile spaceship requiring unity and shared responsibility for survival.
In plain terms
We are all on one spaceship (Earth) and must work together or we will crash.
What can you take from it?
Global unity is essential for survival.

Where it applies

  • climate action
  • international policy
  • personal ethics

Putting it to work

  • support global cooperation
  • reduce waste
  • resolve conflicts peacefully

Questions to consider

  • How do you see your role on this planet?
  • What does unity mean to you?

Another view

This view may be too idealistic about human ability to collaborate.

More from Adlai Stevenson

  1. A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol.

    Permalink to quote #76
  2. On this shrunken globe men can no longer live as strangers. Men can war against each other as hostile neighbors, as we are determined not to do; or they can co…

    Permalink to quote #78
  3. An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.

    Permalink to quote #75

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