Rachel Carson Quotes
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It is not half so important to know as to feel.
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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.
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We are rightly appalled by the genetic effects of radiation; how then, can we be indifferent to the same effect in chemicals we disseminate widely in our environment?
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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.
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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.
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I still feel there is a case to be made for my old belief that as man approaches the 'new heaven and the new earth' -- or the space-age universe, if you will, he must do so with humility rather than with arrogance.
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How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?
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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.
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I am always more interested in what I am about to do than what I have already done.
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Knowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent... It is, in the deepest sense, a privilege as well as a duty to speak out to many thousands of people.
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Science is part of the reality of living; it is the what, the how, and the why of everything in our experience.
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The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance.
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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?
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No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.
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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?
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Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.
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Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.
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For mankind as a whole, a possession infinitely more valuable than individual life is our genetic heritage, our link with past and future... Yet genetic deterioration through man-made agents is the menace of our time.
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Darling -- I suppose the world would consider us absolutely crazy, but it is wonderful to feel that way, isn't it? Sort of a perpetual springtime in our hearts.
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Nature reserves some of her choice rewards for days when her mood may appear to be somber.
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The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, . . . when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man . . . . It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.
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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.
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The beauty of the living world I was trying to save has always been uppermost in my mind - that, and anger at the senseless, brutish things that were being done. . . . Now I can believe I have at least helped a little.
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This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits.