Leadership Quote by Richard H. Baker

Baker’s line trades in a politician’s favorite currency: awe as a unifier. He starts with the small, bipartisan wonders of daily life - sunrise, full moon - images so widely shared they bypass ideology. Then he pulls the rug: those comforts are only the foyer to a universe whose scale defeats human comprehension. The move is rhetorical jujitsu. He grants the audience a familiar, sentimental entry point, then uses it to argue for humility.

The intent isn’t astrophysics; it’s posture. “For most people” quietly positions him as both insider and guide: he’s with you in the ordinary marvel, yet he’s also the one naming what you can’t quite articulate. The phrase “impossible to fathom” does double duty. It flatters the listener’s sense of wonder while lowering the temperature on certainty. In political language, that’s a nudge away from absolutism: if the cosmos is beyond us, how confident should we be about our own plans, grievances, or enemies?

Subtextually, it’s an argument for perspective without sounding like a lecture. The universe becomes a moral backdrop, a way to make civic life feel smaller, pettier, and therefore negotiable. It also functions as a soft appeal to stewardship: if we’re surrounded by something vast and indifferent, the fragile pocket we inhabit starts to look worth protecting.

Context matters because politicians reach for cosmic imagery when they want to sound above the scrum - during speeches about national purpose, tragedy, or long-term responsibility. Awe is deployed here as a disinfectant: it cleans the room of ego, at least for a sentence.