Kiwi

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.”
― Rachel Carson

“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is -- whether its victim is human or animal -- we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.”
― Rachel Carson

“The reason may speak, and even through the lips, of hope and courage ; but the sensation of which I speak is peculiar ; so peculiarly connected with bodily agony, that I cannot but believe it felt wherever bodily agony is felt. It has nothing to do with the courage of the soul ; affords not the shadow of contradiction to patience, fortitude, religious trust, I mean simply that when extreme pain seizes on us, down go our spirits, fathoms deep ; and, though the soul may yet be submissive and even willing, the sickening question rises, — " How shall I bear this for five minutes? What will become of me?" And if the imagination stretches on to an hour, or hours, there is no word but despair which expresses the feeling. The bystanders can never fully understand this suffering ; no, though they may themselves have suffered to extremity.”
― Harriet Martineau, Life in the Sick Room - Essays

“The truth is, as all will declare who are subject to a frequently recurring pain, a familiar pain becomes more and more dreaded, instead of becoming lightly esteemed in proportion to its familiarity. The general sense of alarm which it probably occasioned when new, may have given way and disappeared before a knowledge of consequences, and a regular method of management or endurance; but the pain itself becomes more odious, more oppressive, more feared, in proportion to the accumulation of experience of weary hours, in proportion to the aggregate of painful associations which every visitation revives.”
― Harriet Martineau, Life in the Sick Room - Essays