All that had gone before was not a thousandth of what was yet to come; the story of this star had barely begun. - Arthur C. Clarke

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

Imagine that every man’s mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the ocean were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but the individuality would have gone

But it had been widely argued that advanced intelligence could never arise in the sea; there were not enough challenges in so benign and unvarying an environment.