Rachel Carson Quotations

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. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world-the very nature of its life.

Neanderthal age of biology and the convenience of man

Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life.

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.

If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find resources of strength that will endure as long as life lasts

My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon.

The ''control of nature'' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and the convenience of man.

Those who love and free nature are never alone.

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.

To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feelthe 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 year, 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.

Under the philosophy that now seems to guide our destinies, nothing must get in the way of the man with the spray gun.

It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators.

They'll save their own habitat and save the beauty of our natural areas.

They want to see you in front of them, shake hands or bow. Whereas domestically, you can get by using the Web or the phone for sales.

It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks...the public must decide whether it wishes to continueon the present road and it can only do sowhen in full possession of the facts...

I recognized the need for certain parts that were not available in the open market.

an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make money, at whatever cost to others, is seldom challenged.

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

If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow.

Because I was providing parts that weren't available anywhere in the world, within two years it became international and in the last four years I think I've penetrated 23 countries.

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.

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. Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

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?

Drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

I am always more interested in what I am about to do than what I have already done.

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children 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, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

Only as a child's awareness and reverence for the wholeness of life are developed can his humanity to his own kind reach its full development.

Knowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent.

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

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change There was a strange stillness The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of scores of bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

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.

Eventually man, too, found his way back to the sea. Standing on its shores, he must have looked out upon it with wonder and curiosity, compounded with an unconscious recognition of his lineage. He could not physically re-enter the ocean as the seals and whales had done. But over the centuries, with all the skill and ingenuity and reasoning powers of his mind, he has sought to explore and investigate even its most remote parts, so that he might re-enter it mentally and imaginatively.

There is one quality that characterizes all of us who deal with the sciences of the earth and its life - we are never bored.

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

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.

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.

For all at last return to the sea- to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Nothing is wasted in the sea; every particle of material is used over and over again, first by one creature, then by another. And when in spring the waters are deeply stirred, the warm bottom water brings to the surface a rich supply of minerals, ready for use by new forms of life.

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

Now I truly believe that we in this generation must come to terms with nature, and I think we're challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of 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.

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.

Beginnings are apt to be shadowy.

I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to 'know' as to 'feel'.

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.

Short version: For the child. . ., it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. . . . It is more important to pave the way for a child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts that he is not ready to assimilate.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. 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. The other fork of the road-the one "less traveled by"-offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.

Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.

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

It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged.

The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him.

As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life - a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no "high-minded orientation," no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.

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

In nature nothing exists alone.

Only within the 20th Century has biological thought been focused on ecology, or the relation of the living creature to its environment. Awareness of ecological relationships is - or should be - the basis of modern conservation programs, for it is useless to attempt to preserve a living species unless the kind of land or water it requires is also preserved. So delicately interwoven are the relationships that when we disturb one thread of the community fabric we alter it all - perhaps almost imperceptibly, perhaps so drastically that destruction follows.

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.

The Choice, after all, is ours to make.

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.

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

Conservation is a cause that has no end. There is no point at which we will say our work is finished.

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.

Always the edge of the sea remains an elusive and indefinable boundary. The shore has a dual nature, changing with the swing of the tides, belonging now to the land, now to the sea.

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.

The ocean is a place of paradoxes. It is the home of the great white shark, two-thousand-pound killer of the seas, and of the hundred-foot blue whale, the largest animal that ever lived. It is also the home of living things so small that your two hands might scoop up as many of them as there are stars in the Milky Way.

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.

No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh... Even the streams were now lifeless... No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves...

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?

These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes-nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the 'good' and the 'bad,' to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil-all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called 'insecticides,' but 'biocides.'

Only yesterday mankind lived in fear of the scourges of smallpox, cholera and plague that once swept nations before them. Now our major concern is no longer with the disease organisms that once were omnipresent; sanitation, better living conditions, and new drugs have given us a high degree of control over infectious disease. Today we are concerned with a different kind of hazard that lurks in our environment-a hazard we ourselves have introduced into our world as our modern way of life has evolved.

But most of all I shall remember the monarchs, that unhurried westward drift of one small winged form after another, each drawn by some invisible force.

The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.

Autumn comes to the sea with a fresh blaze of phosphorescence, when every wave crest is aflame. Here and there the whole surface may glow with sheets of cold fire, while below schools of fish pour through the water like molten metal.

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.

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.

Nature reserves some of her choice rewards for days when her mood may appear to be somber.

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.

Our attitude towards plants is a singularly narrow one. If we see any immediate utility in a plant we foster it. If for any reason we find its presence undesirable or merely a matter of indifference, we may condemn it to destruction forthwith.

One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space.

Is it reasonable to suppose that we can apply a broad-spectrum insecticide to kill the burrowing larval stages of a crop-destroying insect ... without also killing the 'good' insects whose function may be the essential one of breaking down organic matter and maintaining healthy soil?

In recent years it has become impossible to talk about man's relation to nature without referring to "ecology"...such leading scientists in this area as Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Eugene Odum, Paul Ehrlich and others, have become our new delphic voices...so influential has their branch of science become that our time might well be called the "Age of Ecology".