“I am always more interested in what I am about to do than what I have already done.”

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.

The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth – soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife.

Beginnings are apt to be shadowy and so it is the beginnings of the great mother life, the sea.

The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him.

It is not half so important to know as to feel.

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.

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.

I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to ‘know’ as to ‘feel’.

There is one quality that characterizes all of us who deal with the sciences of the earth and its life – we are never bored.

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.

In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.

Every mystery solved brings us to the threshold of a greater one.

Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.

What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you – what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind – you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.

If you’re a serious actor, it’s when you know you’re going to die tomorrow that you really start to feel it.

I haven’t had that one great love, which is good. I don’t want that to be in the past – I want it to be in the future.

If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.

The future is a kind of nostalgia.

Society’s future will depend on a continuous improvement program for the human character. And what will that future bring? I do not know, but it will be exciting.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

In spite of all of the things, the issues, that we may be confronting today, I’m very hopeful, very optimistic about the future.