Rachel Carson: Man

“Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.”

Rachel Carson

"Essay on the Biological Sciences" in Good Reading (1958)
Context: If we have been slow to develop the general concepts of ecology and conservation, we have been even more tardy in recognizing the facts of the ecology and conservation of man himself. We may hope that this will be the next major phase in the development of biology. Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.

Learning , Future , Dependency

“But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”

Rachel Carson

War , Nature , Parting

“Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.”

Rachel Carson book Silent Spring

Source: Silent Spring

World , Nature , Time

“Any concept of biology is not only sterile and profitless, it is distorted and untrue, if it puts its primary focus on unnatural conditions rather than on those vast forces not of man's making that shape and channel the nature and direction of life.”

Rachel Carson

Preface to Humane Biology Projects (1961) by the Animal Welfare Institute

Life , Nature

“The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials.”

Rachel Carson book Silent Spring

Chapter 2, Page 6 http://books.google.com/books?id=5hR_i1rNzAYC&q=%22The+most+alarming+of+all+man's+assaults+upon+the+environment+is+the+contamination+of+air+earth+rivers+and+sea+with+dangerous+and+even+lethal+materials%22&pg=PA6#v=onepage
Silent Spring (1962)

Sea

“We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective. Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction.”

Rachel Carson

Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91

Problem , Reality , Universe , Time

“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

Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 96

Life , World , Faith , History