The quotations of

Rachel Carson

American marine biologist and conservationist

1907–1964

16 quotes, most often on Nature, Science and Writing.

In our own lifetime we are witnessing a startling alteration of climate.
The Sea Around Us (1951)
- Nature
The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.
Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952) for The Sea Around Us
- Science
- Writing
Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.
Silent Spring (1962)
- Nature
Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important, simply because of his new-found power to destroy it.
Speech at Scripps College (June 1962)
- Nature
Measured against the vast backdrop of geologic time, the whole era of man seems but a moment-but how portentous a moment!
Speech at Scripps College (June 1962)
- Time
Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life.
Silent Spring (1962)
- Nature
This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits.
Silent Spring (1962), Chapter 2, Page 13
- Knowledge
If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.
Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952)
- Poetry
- Writing
Writing is a lonely occupation at best.
Acceptance speech of the Achievement Award of the American Association of University Women, Washington, D.C., June 22, (1956)
- Writing
I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life — past, present, and future.
Preface to Humane Biology Projects (1961) by the Animal Welfare Institute
- Nature
- Science
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
The Sense of Wonder (1965)
- Beauty
- Nature
Given time-time not in years but in millennia-life adjusts, and a balance has been reached. For time is the essential ingredient; but in the modern world there is no time.
Silent Spring (1962)
- Nature
- Time
Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good?
Silent Spring (1962)
- Motivation & Goals
Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.”
Silent Spring (1962)
- Nature
- Science
Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.
Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952)
- Emotion
- Virtue

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