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
Topics: Beauty, Wonder, Humility
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
Topics: Curiosity, Wonder, Friendship
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
Topics: Water
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. 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. 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. 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. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Night, Stars, Beauty
Mankind is challenged, as it has never been challenged before, to prove its maturity and its mastery — not of nature, but of itself. Therein lies our hope and our destiny.
—Rachel Carson
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 boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from our sources of strength.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Dreams, Wonder
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 and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Fresh, Excitement, Inner-child
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Strength, Beauty, Earth, Wilderness
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
Topics: Water
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.
—Rachel Carson
Beginnings are apt to be shadowy and so it is the beginnings of the great mother life, the sea.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Inaction, Getting Going, Beginnings, Procrastination
The “control of nature” is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and the convenience of man.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Nature
For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it is a pity that you use it so little.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Memories
A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Weather, Rain
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.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Excitement, Imagination
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature-the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Nature
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
Topics: Wildlife
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
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the Earth are never alone or weary of life.
—Rachel Carson
Topics: Life and Living
No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.
—Rachel Carson
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Aldo Leopold American Conservationist
- E. O. Wilson American Sociobiologist
- John Muir American Naturalist
- Bob Marshall American Forester
- David Brower American Environmentalist
- Henry David Thoreau American Philosopher
- Stewart Brand American Writer
- Peter Matthiessen American Naturalist, Novelist
- Walter Reuther American Labor Leader
- Al Gore American Politician, Environmentalist
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