Silent Spring Quotes - Page 2

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Beauty, Nature, Humility

  59 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

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Eras, Problem, Fit

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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Running, Moving, Years

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

  227 Copy quote

  Show source

• To the bird watcher, the suburbanite who derives joy from birds in his garden, the hunter, the fisherman or the explorer of wild regions, anything that destroys the wildlife of an area for even a single year has deprived him of pleasure to which he has a legitimate right. This is a valid point of view.

  Rachel Carson

  Garden, Views, Years

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.86, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Believe, Environmental, Poison

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.15, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Book, Writing, Sea

  Rachel Carson (1989). “The Sea Around Us”, p.24, Oxford University Press, USA

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Show source

• There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Believe, Humility, Reality

  Rachel Carson (2011). “Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson”, p.94, Beacon Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Rachel Carson

  War, Civilization, Losing

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.99, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Nature, Children, Years

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

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance.

  Rachel Carson

  Arrogance, Neanderthals, Phrases

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.297, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Until 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. There can be no double standard. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Peace, War, Heart

  "Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge", ed. Lisa H. Sideris and Kathleen Dean Moore Albany: State University of New York Press, (p. 102), 2008.

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Men, Arrogance, Phrases

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.297, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Nature, Men, Society

  Albert Schweitzer (1984). “The Words of Albert Schweitzer”

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Memories, Women, Smell

  8 Copy quote

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

  Rachel Carson

  Important, Half, Feels

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.21, Open Road Media

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Beautiful, Children, Garden

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

  16 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  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.

  Rachel Carson

  Life, Motivational, Family

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

  241 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Rachel Carson

  Inspirational, Peace, Nature

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.41, Open Road Media

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Rachel Carson

  Beach, Nature, Ocean

  Rachel Carson (2011). “Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson”, p.114, Beacon Press

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel

  Passion, Men, Balance

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Humility, Men, Delicate Life

  Silent Spring ch. 17 (1962)

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Rachel Carson

  Children, Creativity, Awe And Wonder

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

  22 Copy quote

  Show source