Extremely Large Numbers

Famous quotes containing the words extremely, large and/or numbers:

    “Is suffering so very serious? I have come to doubt it. It may be quite childish, a sort of undignified pastime—I’m referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It’s extremely painful. I agree that it’s hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain deserves no consideration at all. It’s no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.”
    —Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)

    “It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”
    —Gore Vidal (b. 1925)