Years ago, I tried crossing a downhill street plated with glare ice (friction is one of our few weapons against gravity) and could no more walk across that street than I could fly.  And for the first time, I understood what gravity was capable of.  It doesn’t negotiate, it can’t be avoided, it runs this place like an absolute dictatorship.

Anne Finkbeiner, channeling Haldane*, on Falling.

* “You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away.  A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes.” From On Being the Right Size, by JBS Haldane.