An Inspirational Quote.

Rachel Carson was to nature what Martin Luther King was to America. As a young environmentalist, and an avid writer, Rachel Carson used her skills to promote awareness about the world we live in. Her bestsellers, The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea won her the unique title of “the Mother of Modern Environmental Movement.”

Her brilliant writing, The Silent Spring, caused a new awakening among nature lovers of the world. She envisioned that with the rampant use of pesticides, particularly DDT, a synthetic pesticide, would cause the mass destruction of nature. The Bald Eagle in particular, would be a direct victim of the pesticide. As the poison traveled up the food chain, it would affect nearly all species, including humans.

Carson began her crusade against synthetic pesticides. Her writings invoked the wrath of chemical companies who vehemently denied the ill effects of synthetic pesticides. However, Carson was not the one to be intimidated by the might of the multinationals. She took her fight to the highest levels of government office, and lobbied in the corridors of power against USDA.

Many scientists, biologists, and doctors began to see the truth in Carson’s story, as they made new discoveries about the harmful effects of pesticides. The National Cancer Institute also classified pesticides as carcinogenic substances and advised against their use. With support from scientists and doctors, Rachel Carson managed to gather momentum in the public movement, and raised enough eyebrows to cause people to reconsider the use of pesticides.

Even while she was embroiled in the battle to save nature, she was fighting her own battle against breast cancer. Her health condition deteriorated and delayed the completion of the book The Silent Spring. However, even during the advanced stages of cancer, Carson testified before the President’s Science Advisory Committee and relentlessly followed the trial. In 1963, after seven years of pursuit, the Committee presented a report in favor of her research. Rachel Carson had won her war, though she had very few days left to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

The crusade for the protection of the environment gained momentum. Carson’s activism inspired many scientists to follow the path of conservation. The Environment Protection Agency is a result of Carson’s effort. Rachel Carson earned many posthumous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Get inspired by these Rachel Carson quotes and find your true calling in her powerful words.

• For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.
   
• The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.
   
• Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.
   
• For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it is a pity that you use it so little.
   
• I am always more interested in what I am about to do than in what I have already done.
   
• Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.
   
• If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in
   
• 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 destruction
   
• A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.
   
• But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.
   
• Even in the vast and mysterious reaches of the sea we are brought back to the fundamental truth that nothing lives to itself.
   
• In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference
   
• It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.
   
• In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.
   
• It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.
   
• It is not half so important to know as to feel.
   
• The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.
   
• If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life
   
• Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species — man — acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.
   
• The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him
   
• The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and the convenience of man.
   
• The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery – not over nature but of ourselves.
   
• To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feelthe 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 year, 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.