“But most of all I shall remember the monarchs, that unhurried westward drift of one small winged form after another, each drawn by some invisible force.”

The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials.

Only as a child’s awareness and reverence for the wholeness of life are developed can his humanity to his own kind reach its full development.

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.

Now I truly believe that we in this generation must come to terms with nature, and I think we’re challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature but of ourselves.

Knowing 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.

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 nature nothing exists alone.

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.

Drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see.

Beginnings are apt to be shadowy.

Those who love and free nature are never alone.

Then the song of a whitethroat, pure and ethereal, with the dreamy quality of remembered joy.

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.

To understand the living present, and the promise of the future, it is necessary to remember the past.

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

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.