The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw Earth from space.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

As we got further and further away, it [the Earth] diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man.

Many say exploration is part of our destiny, but it’s actually our duty to future generations and their quest to ensure the survival of the human species.

Never in all their history have men been able truly to conceive of the world as one: a single sphere, a globe, having the qualities of a globe, a round earth in which all the directions eventually meet, in which there is no center because every point, or none, is center — an equal earth which all men occupy as equals. The airman's earth, if free men make it, will be truly round: a globe in practice, not in theory.

Failure is not an option.

Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10.

We want to explore. We’re curious people. Look back over history, people have put their lives at stake to go out and explore … We believe in what we’re doing. Now it’s time to go.

What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that man set foot on the Moon but that they set eye on the earth.

We have an infinite amount to learn both from nature and from each other