“What greater stupidity can be imagined than calling jewels, silver, and gold ‘precious’ and earth and soil ‘base’? People who do this ought to remember that if there were a greater scarcity of soil as of jewels or precious metals, there would not be a prince who would not spend a bushel of diamonds … to have enough soil to plant a jasmine in a little pot, or to sow an orange seed and watch it sprout, grow and produce its handsome leaves, its fragrant flowers, its fine fruit.”
– Galileo Galilei
