Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 94
Context: Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world.
There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.
“We unwittingly focus on fear and distrust, as if those were the only possible options available to us, while all along we have the alternative of deliberately centering our attention on the opposite, the mystery, the wonder of what is happening to us.”
Source: The Eagle's Gift, (1981)
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Carlos Castaneda 98
Peruvian-American author 1925–1998Related quotes
2000s, To Live Beyond Our Fear (2007)
Context: We have this window of opportunity; we have a chance to make something real happen. Something possible happen, to live beyond our fear — think about that, and help us. Help lift us up, help us fight this fight to change — transform — this country in a fundamental way.
This chance won’t come around again.
“On Preparing to Read Kipling”, p. 125
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)
Charles Eisenstein, Oral presentation in Baltimore, MD March 2012
The Intimate Enemy
2015, Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment (December 2015)
Gamal Abdel Nasser, speech to Egypt's National Assembly, Cairo (November 6, 1969), as reported by The Washington Post (November 7, 1969), p. 1.