Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth.

Archimedes, 287-212 BCE, was a native of Syracuse, Sicily. It is reported by some authors that he visited Egypt and there invented a device now known as Archimedes’ screw. This is a pump, still used in many parts of the world. It is highly likely that, when he was a young man, Archimedes studied with the successors of Euclid in Alexandria. Certainly he was completely familiar with the mathematics developed there, but what makes this conjecture much more certain, he knew personally the mathematicians working there and he sent his results to Alexandria with personal messages. He regarded Conon of Samos, one of the mathematicians at Alexandria, both very highly for his abilities as a mathematician and he also regarded him as a close friend. Source MacTutor History of Mathematics.

I love this quote by Archimedes. Like many of the more memorable quotes, its elegance is in its simplicity yet it can elicit some very compound thoughts. I like to imagine the great thinker saying this a bit in jest, as obviously there is nowhere you can stand where you could place a fulcrum and lever to move the Earth. But in principle, sure you could.