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

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

Rachel Carson

focus long reality

But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

Rachel Carson

motivational inspirational war

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.

Rachel Carson

nature sea men

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?

Rachel Carson

gratitude change motivational

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.

Rachel Carson

nature time inspirational

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

Rachel Carson

environmental causes rivers

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

family motivational 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.

Rachel Carson

running years moving

The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife. To utilize them for present needs while insuring their preservation for future generations requires a delicately balanced and continuing program, based on the most extensive research. Their administration is not properly, and cannot be, a matter of politics.

Rachel Carson

real water lying

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.

Rachel Carson

attitude men war

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

Rachel Carson

strength nature beauty

Science is part of the reality of living; it is the what, the how, and the why of everything in our experience.

Rachel Carson

reality

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.

Rachel Carson

women nature lying

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

Rachel Carson

future nature character

The Choice, after all, is ours to make.

Rachel Carson

choices

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.

Rachel Carson

ocean nature zoos

In nature nothing exists alone.

Rachel Carson

environment

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

Rachel Carson

silent knowing would-be

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

Rachel Carson

heart peace life

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

Rachel Carson

drink wonder