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
Earth
Supposed
Phrase
Men
Weapons
Misfortunes
Terrible
Arrogance
Alarming
Control
Primitive
Conceived
Modern
Phrases
Misfortune
Science
Turning
Convenience
Nature
Exists
Insects
Also
Turned
Armed

More quotes by Rachel Carson

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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
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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
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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
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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.
Rachel Carson
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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
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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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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
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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
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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.
Rachel Carson
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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
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Then the song of a whitethroat, pure and ethereal, with the dreamy quality of remembered joy.
Rachel Carson
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The lasting pleasures of contact with the natural world are not reserved for scientists but are available to anyone who will place himself under the influence of earth, sea and sky and their amazing life.
Rachel Carson
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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
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For mankind as a whole, a possession infinitely more valuable than individual life is our genetic heritage, our link with past and future... Yet genetic deterioration through man-made agents is the menace of our time.
Rachel Carson
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[Writing is] largely a matter of application and hard work, or writing and rewriting endlessly until you are satisfied that you have said what you want to say as clearly and simply as possible. For me that usually means many, many revisions.
Rachel Carson
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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
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Nature reserves some of her choice rewards for days when her mood may appear to be somber.
Rachel Carson
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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
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I still feel there is a case to be made for my old belief that as man approaches the 'new heaven and the new earth' -- or the space-age universe, if you will, he must do so with humility rather than with arrogance.
Rachel Carson
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Those who love and free nature are never alone.
Rachel Carson