jellyfish of every size
“There were jellyfish of every size: white, gently pulsing discs as delicate as spun glass; small pink barrage balloons decked with beating cilia . . . ; an occasional orange monster with tentacles that promised evil stings for fish or mammal.”
—Richard Fortey, Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, 1998.
the appearance of blue-green bacteria
“Imagine that the history of the world is represented by a clockface, say, then the the appearance of blue-green bacteria in the record happened at about two oclock, while invertebrates appeared at about ten oclock, and mankind, like Cinderella suddenly recalling the end of the ball, at about one minute to midnight. I do not know whether such images are useful other than as encyclopaedia illustrations.”
—Richard Fortey, Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, 1998.
A love of green
“There cannot be a more important event than the greening of the world, for it prepared the way for everything that happened on land thereafter in the evolutionary theatre. A love of green is not just a sentimental attachment to rural holidays remembered from youthful days, green days. It runs deeper than that. In desert countries the rich sheikh celebrates his fortune with a garden sequestered away from the sun. We admire grandeur in wild scenery, mountains, canyons, deserts and glaciers. In such territory eventually this majesty begins to pall; a vague sense of dissatisfaction creeps in. Something is missing. But in greenness there is repose. It has been proved that the green wavelengths are least irritating to the retina. Red is angry, blue is cold, but green is restful.”
—Richard Fortey, Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, 1998.
the sun stood still
“Joshua said, O sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and O moon in the valley of Aijalon. So the sun stood still and the moon stopped.”
—The Bible, Joshua 10:12-13.
Blue and green suns
“The extremely violent nature of the eruption of Krakatoa on August 26th to the 27th, 1883, was known in England very shortly after it occurred, but it was not until a month later that the exceptional character of some of the attendant phenomena was reported. Blue and green suns were stated to have been seen in various tropical countries: Then came records of a peculiar haze; in November the extraordinary twilight glows in the British Isles commanded general attention; and their probable connection with Krakatoa was pointed out by various writers.”
—The eruption of Krakatoa and subsequent phenomena, a report by the Royal Society of London, edited by G.J. Symons, 1888.
the intense yellow ochreous glare
“Shackle called me up about 5:30 A.M. to see a glorious sunrise. . . . The sunset was even more glorious than the sunrise, for the sky was almost cloudless and we got the intense yellow ochreous glare after sunset uninterrupted by any clouds. It was almost uncanny. One felt as though something terrible was about to happenthe same sort of feeling that one gets in a dense yellow London fog, only this was beautiful, and magnificent, as well as terrifying. Everyone was on the bridge watching it.”
—Edwin Wilson, a member of Sir Ernest Shackletons expedition to Antarctica, Monday, 9 September, 1901.
Three colorsblack, green, white
“[C]olors are used in the tea world as a system of categorizing the various teas in existence. In the West we are mostly familiar with what we call black tea. . . . In the last dozen years or so, green tea . . . has made a grand comeback. . . . More recently, we are being introduced to some of the rarest and most expensive teas: white teas. Three colorsblack, green, whitesounds simple. Yet white teas are a type of green tea, according to some. What we call black teas are considered red teas in China. And the Chinese oolong (or wu-long) tea . . . is not a recognizable color in Western languages, although in Chinese wu means dark, black. . . .”
—Beatrice Hohenegger, Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West, 2006.
white paper
“Let us supppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.”
—John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690; Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, 2002.
the newest and most beautiful words
“A blank sheet of paper has no blotches, and so the newest and most beautiful words can be written on it, the newest and most beautiful pictures can be painted on it.”
—Mao Zedong; Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, 2002.
spotless
“Only the newborn baby is spotless.”
—Khmer Rouge slogan; Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, 2002.