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Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson QUOTES

Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson QUOTES

1 " 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) "

― Rachel Carson , Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson

2 " I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man’s spiritual growth.

I believe this affinity of the human spirit for the earth and its beauties is deeply and logically rooted. As human beings, we are part of the whole stream of life. We have been human beings for perhaps a million years. But life itself — passes on something of itself to other life — that mysterious entity that moves and is aware of itself and its surroundings, and so is distinguished from rocks or senseless clay — [from which] life arose many hundreds of millions of years ago. Since then it has developed, struggled, adapted itself to its surroundings, evolved an infinite number of forms. But its living protoplasm is built of the same elements as air, water, and rock. To these the mysterious spark of life was added. Our origins are of the earth. And so there is in us a deeply seated response to the natural universe, which is part of our humanity. "

― Rachel Carson , Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson

3 " Beauty — and all the values that derive from beauty — are not measured and evaluated in terms of the dollar. "

― Rachel Carson , Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson

4 " Between low water and the flotsam and jetsam of the high-tide mark, land and sea wage a never-ending conflict for possession. "

― Rachel Carson , Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson

5 " We have been troubled about the world, and had almost lost faith in man; it helps to think about the long history of the earth, and of how life came to be. And when we think in terms of millions of years, we are not so impatient that our own problems be solved tomorrow. "

― Rachel Carson , Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson