Quotes from Rachel Carson

The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... 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.

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.

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 the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction. { Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal }

Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.

To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.

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

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

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.

The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history... It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.

Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is -- whether its victim is human or animal -- we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.

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.

Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species within bounds.

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.

For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it's a pity we use it so little.

Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is... we cannot expect things to be much better in this world... We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature - the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

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

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

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

In nature nothing exists alone.

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

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.