Rachel Carson Quotes

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew i would never see it again?

We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature.

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.

A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods.

The lasting pleasures of contact with the natural world are not reserved for scientists but are available to anyone who will place himself under the influence of earth, sea and sky and their amazing life.

The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth - soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife.

Why would anyone believe it is possible to lay down such barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called insecticides, but biocides.

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.

Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?

We are not truly civilized if we concern ourselves only with the relation of man to man. What is important is the relation of man to all life.

If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.

Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good?

Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.

A Who's Who of pesticides is therefore of concern to us all.

If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones - we had better know something about their nature and their power.

We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven't become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe.

The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil.

The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man.

In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.

We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.

If having endured much, we at last asserted our 'right to know' and if, knowing, we have concluded that we are being asked to take senseless and frightening risks, then we should no longer accept the counsel of those who tell us that we must fill our world with poisonous chemicals, we should look around and see what other course is open to us.

In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference.

There is no drop of water in the ocean, not even in the deepest parts of the abyss, that does not know and respond to the mysterious forces that create the tide.

Nowhere on the shore is the relation of a creature to its surroundings a matter of a single cause and effect; each living thing is bound to its world by many threads, weaving the intricate design of the fabric of life.

Then the song of a whitethroat, pure and ethereal, with the dreamy quality of remembered joy.

A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.

The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.

I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life - past, present, and future.

It is ironic to think that man might determine his own future by something so seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray.

It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself.

If I had influence with the good fairy.

.. I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.

By suggestion and example, I believe children can be helped to hear the many voices about them. Take Time to listen and talk about the voices of the earth and what they mean-the majestic voice of thunder, the winds, the sound of surf or flowing streams.

Even in the vast and mysterious reaches of the sea we are brought back to the fundamental truth that nothing lives to itself.

Unless we have courage to recognize cruelty for what it is - whether its victim is human or animal - we cannot expect things to be much better in the world.

A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.

It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.

When we go down to the low-tide line, we enter a world that is as old as the earth itself - the primeval meeting place of the elements of earth and water, a place of compromise and conflit and eternal change.

The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster.

Play, Incorporating Animistic and Magical Thinking Is Important Because It: Fosters the healthy, creative and emotional growth of a child; Forms the best foundation for later intellectual growth. Provides a way in which children get to know the world and creates possibilities for different ways of responding to it. Fosters empathy and wonder.

For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.

It is not half so important to know as to feel.

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the Earth are never alone or weary of life.

The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.

As crude a weapon as a cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life.

The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials.

Beginnings are apt to be shadowy and so it is the beginnings of the great mother life, the sea.