If there were as great a scarcity of soil as of jewels or precious metals, there would not be a prince who would not spend a bushel of diamonds and rubies and a cartload of gold just to have enough earth 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, and fine fruit.
Galileo Galilei, Andrea Frova, Mariapiera Marenzana (2006). “Thus Spoke Galileo: The Great Scientist's Ideas and Their Relevance to the Present Day”, p.174, Oxford University Press
