Quote

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

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Rachel Carson
Age: 56 †
Born: 1907
Born: May 27
Died: 1964
Died: April 14
Author
Conservationist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Marine Biologist
Non-Fiction Writer
Zoologist
Rachel Carson House
Rachel Louise Carson
Rachel L. Carson
Science
Turning
Convenience
Nature
Exists
Insects
Also
Turned
Armed
Earth
Supposed
Phrase
Men
Weapons
Misfortunes
Terrible
Arrogance
Alarming
Control
Primitive
Conceived
Modern
Phrases
Misfortune

More quotes by Rachel Carson

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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
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We have been troubled about the world, and had almost lost faith in man it helps to think about the long history of the earth, and of how life came to be. And when we think in terms of millions of years, we are not so impatient that our own problems be solved tomorrow.
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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.
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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
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In its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life and receives in the end, after, it may be, many transmutations, the dead husks of that same life. 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.
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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
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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.
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Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
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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
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I am always more interested in what I am about to do than what I have already done.
Rachel Carson
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To understand the living present, and the promise of the future, it is necessary to remember the past.
Rachel Carson
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Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.
Rachel Carson
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Darling -- I suppose the world would consider us absolutely crazy, but it is wonderful to feel that way, isn't it? Sort of a perpetual springtime in our hearts.
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The Choice, after all, is ours to make.
Rachel Carson
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As crude a weapon as a cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life.
Rachel Carson
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But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.
Rachel Carson
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Nowhere on the shore is the relation of a creature to its surroundings a matter of a single cause and effect each living thing is bound to its world by many threads, weaving the intricate design of the fabric of life.
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The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth - soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife.
Rachel Carson
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There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.
Rachel Carson
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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