Silent Spring Quotes

“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.
—E.B. White”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“As Albert Schweitzer has said, "Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
—Keats”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“To all of them I express my deepest thanks for time and thought so generously given.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“A grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“Much of the necessary knowledge is now available but we do not use it. We train ecologists in our universities and even employ them in our governmental agencies but we seldom take their advice.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“In the words of Jean Rostand, "The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring