The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man.
I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life -- past, present, and future.
Longer Version:
I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life -- past, present, and future. To understand biology is to understand that all life is linked to the earth from which it came; it is to understand that the stream of life, flowing out of the dim past into the uncertain future, is in reality a unified force, though composed of an infinite number and variety of separate lives.
A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.
Longer Version:
A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full or 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. 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 the boredom and disenchantment of later year…the alienation from the sources of our strength.
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.
Longer Version:
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.
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.
Longer Version:
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.
The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him.
Unless we have courage to recognize cruelty for what it is -- whether its victim is human or animal -- we cannot expect things to be much better in the world.
We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature.
If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow.
Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.
The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.
If you write what you yourself sincerely think and feel and are interested in, the chances are very high that you will interest other people as well.
Like the resource it seeks to protect, wildlife conservation must be dynamic, changing as conditions change, seeking always to become more effective.
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.
In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.
Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.
Longer Version:
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.
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
Longer Version:
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.
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.