Rachel Carson Quotes - Page 3

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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.

Rachel Carson

History, Historical, Environmental

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

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I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man's spiritual growth.

Rachel Carson

Spiritual, Believe, Science

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

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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?

Rachel Carson

Vision, Demand, Accepting

Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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To understand the living present, and the promise of the future, it is necessary to remember the past.

Rachel Carson

Past, Promise, Remember

Rachel Carson, Sue Hubbell (1998). “The Edge of the Sea”, p.194, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life - past, present, and future. To understand biology is to understand that all life is linked to the earth from which it came; it is to understand that the stream of life, flowing out of the dim past into the uncertain future, is in reality a unified force, though composed of an infinite number and variety of separate lives.

Rachel Carson

Past, Reality, Numbers

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

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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.

Rachel Carson

Drinking, Pesticides, Bones

Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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.

Rachel Carson

Nature, Philosophy, Men

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

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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

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

Rachel Carson

Science, Sea, Environmental

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The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil.

Rachel Carson

Years, Childhood, Soil

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

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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?

Rachel Carson

Home, Circles, Insanity

Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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.

Rachel Carson

Morning, Spring, Voice

Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.2, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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.

Rachel Carson

Land, Water, Community

"Essay on the Biological Sciences". Good Reading, 1958.

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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.

Rachel Carson

Nature, Children, Humanity

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Then the song of a whitethroat, pure and ethereal, with the dreamy quality of remembered joy.

Rachel Carson

Song, Joy, Quality

Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.32, Open Road Media

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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.

Rachel Carson

Nature, Ocean, Sea

Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sea Around Us”, p.160, Open Road Media

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Like the resource it seeks to protect, wildlife conservation must be dynamic, changing as conditions change, seeking always to become more effective.

Rachel Carson

Wildlife, Conservation, Resources

Rachel Carson (1948). “Guarding Our Wildlife Resources”

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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.

Rachel Carson

Ocean, Water, Elements

Rachel Carson, Sue Hubbell (1998). “The Edge of the Sea”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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.

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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.

Rachel Carson

Children, Believe, Mean

Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.32, Open Road Media

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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.

Rachel Carson

Nature, Knowing, Our World

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

Rachel Carson

Dollars, Cost, Eras

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

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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

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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

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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.

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Born: May 27, 1907
Died: April 14, 1964
Occupation: Marine biologist
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