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 CARSONIf 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 CARSONAutumn comes to the sea with a fresh blaze of phosphorescence, when every wave crest is aflame. Here and there the whole surface may glow with sheets of cold fire, while below schools of fish pour through the water like molten metal.
RACHEL CARSONThe edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.
RACHEL CARSONThen the song of a whitethroat, pure and ethereal, with the dreamy quality of remembered joy.
RACHEL CARSONNature reserves some of her choice rewards for days when her mood may appear to be somber.
RACHEL CARSONThe question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.
RACHEL CARSONLike the resource it seeks to protect, wildlife conservation must be dynamic, changing as conditions change, seeking always to become more effective.
RACHEL CARSONBut man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.
RACHEL CARSONKnowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent. It is, in the deepest sense, a privilege as well as a duty to speak out to many thousands of people.
RACHEL CARSONTo understand the living present, and the promise of the future, it is necessary to remember the past.
RACHEL CARSONWe cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature.
RACHEL CARSONThose 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 CARSONIt 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 CARSONThe 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 CARSONNowhere 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.
RACHEL CARSONThere is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.
RACHEL CARSON