Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.
Drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see.
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 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.
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.
The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.
The ‘control of nature’ is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man.