The Measure of a Man

by Sidney Poitier

Well, I’m no scientist, and certainly I don’t have Carl Sagan’s technical understanding of the universe and our position within it. I simply believe that there’s a very organic, immeasurable consciousness of which we’re a part. I believe that this consciousness is a force so powerful that I’m incapable of comprehending its power through the puny instrument of my human mind. And yet I believe that this consciousness is so unimaginably calibrated in its sensitivity that not one leaf falls in the deepest of forests on the darkest of nights unnoticed. Now, given the immensity of this immeasurable power that I’m talking about, and given its pervasiveness through the universe (extending from distant galaxies to the tip of my nose), I choose not to engage in what I consider to be the useless effort of giving it a name, and by naming it, suggesting that I in any way understand it, though I’m enriched by the language and imagery of both traditional Christianity and old island culture. Many of my fellow human beings do give it a name, and do purport to understand it in a more precise way than I would ever attempt. I just give it respect, and I think of it as living in me as well as everywhere else.