If I Didn't Exist, I Would Have

The Realisation That Our Small Planet Is Only One Of Many Worlds Gives Mankind The Perspective It Needs To Realise Sooner That Our Own World Belongs To All Its Creatures.

To Find Anything Comparable With Our Forthcoming Ventures Into Space, We Must Go Back Far Beyond Columbus, Far Beyond Odysseus-far, Indeed, Beyond The First Ape-man. We Must Contemplate The Moment, Now Irrevocably Lost In The Mists Of Time, When The Ancestor Off All Of Us Came Crawling Out Of The Sea.

I Have Great Faith In Optimism As A Guiding Principle, If Only Because It Offers Us The Opportunity Of Creating A Self-fulfilling Prophecy.

Death Focuses The Mind On The Things That Really Matter: Why Are We Here, And What Should We Do?

Finally, I Would Like To Assure My Many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, And Muslim Friends That I Am Sincerely Happy That The Religion Which Chance Has Given You Has Contributed To Your Peace Of Mind (and Often, As Western Medical Science Now Reluctantly Admits, To Your Physical Well-being). Perhaps It Is Better To Be Un-sane And Happy, Than Sane And Un-happy. But It Is The Best Of All To Be Sane And Happy. Whether Our Descendants Can Achieve That Goal Will Be The Greatest Challenge Of The Future. Indeed, It May Well Decide Whether We Have Any Future.