Rachel Carson Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• The more I learned about the use of pesticides, the more appalled I became. I realized that here was the material for a book. What I discovered was that everything which meant most to me as a naturalist was being threatened, and that nothing I could do would be more important.

  Rachel Carson

  Book, Important, Would Be

  Paul Brooks, Rachel Carson (1972). “The house of life: Rachel Carson at work”

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Remember, Invisible, Form

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Believe, Mind, Trying

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.379, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  11 Copy quote

• We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective. Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction.

  Rachel Carson

  Reality, Men, Vanity

  "Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson", edited by Linda Lear, (p. 91), 1999.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Lying, Long, Progress

  "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, (p. 277), 1962.

  14 Copy quote

• Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.

  Rachel Carson

  Men, Survival, Here And There

  Rachel Carson (2011). “Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson”, p.167, Beacon Press

  5 Copy quote

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

  Rachel Carson

  Men, Thinking, Choices

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.28, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Men, Dirty Water, Ice Water

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.39, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Weed, Attitude, Differences

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.63, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

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

  Rachel Carson

  Nature, Past, Environmental

  Preface to "Humane Biology Projects" by the Animal Welfare Institute, 1961.

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Spring, Sea, Water

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sea Around Us”, p.29, Open Road Media

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Children, Emotional, Thinking

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Stars, Ocean, Home

  Rachel Carson (2011). “Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson”, p.6, Beacon Press

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Life, Ocean, Sea

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sea Around Us”, p.9, Open Road Media

  15 Copy quote

• The shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and sea there has been this place of the meeting of land and water.

  Rachel Carson

  Sea, Land, Long

  Rachel Carson, Sue Hubbell (1998). “The Edge of the Sea”, p.2, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

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

  Rachel Carson

  Men, Fabric Of Life, Earth Day

  Silent Spring ch. 17 (1962)

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Summer, Night, August

  7 Copy quote

• [Writing is] largely a matter of application and hard work, or writing and rewriting endlessly until you are satisfied that you have said what you want to say as clearly and simply as possible. For me that usually means many, many revisions.

  Rachel Carson

  Mean, Hard Work, Writing

  Paul Brooks, Rachel Carson (1972). “The house of life: Rachel Carson at work”

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Ocean, Men, Whales

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sea Around Us”, p.19, Open Road Media

  15 Copy quote

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

  Rachel Carson

  Mother, Sea, Great Mother

  12 Copy quote

• the sea is a place of mystery. One by one, the mysteries of yesterday have been solved. But the solution seems always to bring with it another, perhaps a deeper mystery. I doubt that the last, final mysteries of the sea will ever be resolved. In fact, I cherish a very unscientific hope that they will not be.

  Rachel Carson

  Ocean, Sea, Yesterday

  Rachel Carson (2011). “Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson”, p.80, Beacon Press

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Risk, Wish, Needs

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Change, Nature, Men

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.5, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• 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'.

  Rachel Carson

  Children, Believe, Parent

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.20, Open Road Media

  9 Copy quote

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

  Rachel Carson

  Science, Fiction, Literature

  "Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson" edited by Linda Lear, (p. 91), 1999.

  8 Copy quote

Page 4 of 6

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin