Rachel Carson Quotes

The small island of Bogoslof, since it was first observed in 1796, has altered its shape and position several times and has even disappeared completely, only to emerge again. The original island was a mass of black rock, sculptured into fantastic, tower-like shapes. Explorers and sealers coming upon it in the fog were reminded of a castle and named it Castle Rock. At the present time there remain only one or two pinnacles of the castle, a long spit of black rocks where sea lions haul out, and a cluster of higher rocks resounding with the cries of thousands of sea birds. Each time the parent volcano erupts, as it has done at least half a dozen times since men have been observing it, new masses of steaming rocks emerge from the heated waters, some to reach heights of several hundred feet before they are destroyed in fresh explosions.

five hundred new chemicals to which the bodies of men and animals are required somehow to adapt each year, chemicals totally outside the limits of biologic experience.

To the bird watcher, the suburbanite who derives joy from birds in his garden, the hunter, the fisherman or the explorer of wild regions, anything that destroys the wildlife of an area for even a single year has deprived him of pleasure to which he has a legitimate right.

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. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.

...[I]t is simply impossible to predict the effects of lifetime exposure to chemical and physical agents that are not part of the biological experience of man.

Los peces, los anfibios y los reptiles por un lado y las aves y los mamíferos de sangre caliente por otro, y cada uno de nosotros, llevamos en nuestras venas la corriente salina de nuestra sangre, en la cual el sodio, el potasio y el calcio se hallan en proporciones muy semejantes a las que existen en el agua del mar. Ésta es nuestra herencia desde el día, hace un número incalculable de millones de años, en que un remoto antecesor pasó de la etapa unicelular a la pluricelular y adquirió por vez primera un sistema circulatorio, en el interior del cual corría un fluido casi idéntico al agua del mar.

"These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes - nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the "good" and the "bad", to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil - all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth with out making it unfit for all life? They should not be called "insecticides", but "biocides"."

We must change our philosophy, abandon our attitude of human superiority and admit that in many cases in natural environments we find ways and means of limiting populations of organisms in a more economical way than we can do it ourselves

From a ball of mud taken from a birds plumage, Charles Darwin raised 82 separate plants, belonging to five distinct species!

It is one of the ironies of our time that, while concentrating on the defense of our country against enemies from without, we should be so heedless of those who would destroy it from within. (Aug 1953 letter to the editor of The Washington Post)

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.

Vouloir 'contrôler la nature' est une arrogante prétention, née d'une biologie et d'une philosophie qui en sont encore à l'âge de Néandertal, où l'on pouvait croire la nature destinée à satisfaire le bon plaisir de l'homme. Les concepts et les pratiques de l'entomologie appliquée reflètent cet âge de pierre de la science. Le malheur est qu'une si primitive pensée dispose actuellement des moyens d'action les plus puissants, et que, en orientant ses armes contre les insectes, elle les pointe aussi contre la terre.

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder . . . he [or she] needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.

For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.

A dynamic female zoology professor expanded her intellectual horizons by urging her to take the daring step of majoring in biology rather than English. In doing so, Carson discovered that science not only engaged her mind but gave her “something to write about.