The past, he said. The past is too much with me. And the past has made me useless. I have too much to remember—so much to remember that it becomes mo… - Clifford D. Simak

I have become a student of the sky and know all the clouds there are and have firmly fixed in mind the various hues of blue that the sky can show—the washed-out, almost invisible blue of a hot, summer noon; the soft robin’s egg, sometimes almost greenish blue of a late springtime evening, the darker, almost violet blue of fall. I have become a connoisseur of the coloring that the leaves take on in autumn and I know all the voices and the moods of the woods and river valley. I have, in a measure, entered into communion with nature, and in this wise have followed in the footsteps of Red Cloud and his people, although I am sure that their understanding and their emotions are more fine-tuned than mine are. I have seen, however, the roll of seasons, the birth and death of leaves, the glitter of the stars on more nights than I can number and from all this as from nothing else I have gained a sense of a purpose and an orderliness which it does not seem to me can have stemmed from accident alone.
It seems to me, thinking of it, that there must be some universal plan which set in motion the orbiting of the electrons about the nucleus and the slower, more majestic orbit of the galaxies about one another to the very edge of space. There is a plan, it seems to me, that reaches out from the electron to the rim of the universe and what this plan may be or how it came about is beyond my feeble intellect. But if we are looking for something on which to pin our faith—and, indeed, our hope—the plan might well be it. I think we have thought too small and have been too afraid...

For it was authority that turned men suspicious and stern-faced. Authority and responsibility which made them not themselves, but a sort of corporate body that tried to think as a corporate body rather than a person.

He doubted very much that at any time man could have been said to have truly owned the earth. Rather, they had taken it, wresting it from the other creatures that had as much right of ownership as they, but without the intelligence or the ingenuity or power to assert their rights. Man had been pushy, arrogant interloper rather than the owner. He had taken over by the force of mind, which could be as detestable as the force of muscle, making his own rules, setting his own goals, establishing his own values in utter disregard of all other living things.