Rachel Carson

The beauty of a tree, the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream—these are the things that nourish the soul.

I have no patience with those who say that it is too late to do anything. It is never too late to try.

The future of life on Earth depends on our willingness to act now.

The more we understand the intricate web of life, the more we will appreciate its fragility.

Our heedless and destructive uses of the earth's resources are a form of self-destruction.

I hope that my book will awaken a sense of responsibility in all who read it.

The control of nature is a phrase born of arrogance.

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

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.

In nature, nothing exists alone.

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.

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

The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.

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.

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.

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

The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities.

Are we to stand by while the people of the world are fed into a biological meat grinder? When we poison the air, the water, and the soil, we are poisoning ourselves.

The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and the convenience of man.

I am not a scientist in the sense that I wear a white coat and work in a laboratory. I am a writer, and my laboratory is the world around me.