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Rachel Carson
(27 May 1907 - 14 Apr 1964)
American marine biologist, conservationist and writer whose book Silent Spring (1962), denounced the indiscriminate use of pesticides, and helped launch the modern environmental movement.
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Rachel Carson Quotes on Science (6 quotes)
>> Click for 43 Science Quotes by Rachel Carson
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>> Click for 43 Science Quotes by Rachel Carson
>> Click for Rachel Carson Quotes on | Beauty | Child | Discovery | Earth | Environment | Fact | Insect | Knowledge | Life | Nature | Sea | Survival | Tide | Truth | Water | Wonder | World | Year |
Scientific observers at Sheldon described … [how even] more pitiful was the mute testimony of the dead ground squirrels, which “exhibited a characteristic attitude in death. The back was bowed, and the forelegs with the toes of the feet tightly clenched were drawn close to the thorax … The head and neck were outstretched and the mouth often contained dirt, suggesting that the dying animal had been biting at the ground.”
— Rachel Carson
In 'Needless Havoc', Silent Spring (1962), 99. [Note: Summarizing Carson (pp 92-93), for several years from 1954, Sheldon, in eastern Illinois, was subjected to extensive spraying of dieldrin (50 times more poisonous than DDT) by the Agriculture Departments of the U.S. and Illinois, to attempt to eradicate the Japanese beetle along the line of its invasive advance into Illinois. The dieldrin used was roughly equivalent to 150 pounds of DDT per acre. —Webmaster]
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.
— Rachel Carson
Address upon receiving National Book Award at reception, Hotel Commodore, New York (27 Jan 1952). As cited in Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature (1997), 219.
The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities. If they are not there, science cannot create them. 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.
— Rachel Carson
Address upon receiving National Book Award at reception, Hotel Commodore, New York (27 Jan 1952). As cited in Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature (1997), 219. She was referring to her book being recognized, The Sea Around Us.
These insecticides are not selective poisons; they do not single out the one species of which we desire to be rid. … Scientific observers at Sheldon described the symptoms of a meadowlark found near death: “Although it lacked muscular coordination and could not fly or stand, it continued to beat its wings and clutch with its toes while lying on its side. Its beak was held open and breathing was labored.”
— Rachel Carson
In 'Needless Havoc', Silent Spring (1962), 99. [Note: Summarizing Carson (pp 92-93), for several years from 1954, Sheldon, in eastern Illinois, was subjected to extensive spraying of dieldrin (50 times more poisonous than DDT) by the Agriculture Departments of the U.S. and Illinois, to attempt to eradicate the Japanese beetle along the line of its invasive advance into Illinois. The dieldrin used was roughly equivalent to 150 pounds of DDT per acre. —Webmaster]
This notion that “science” is something that belongs in a separate compartment of its own, apart from everyday life, is one that I should like to challenge. We live in a scientific age; yet we assume that knowledge of science is the prerogative of only a small number of human beings, isolated and priest-like in their laboratories. This is not true. It cannot be true. The materials of science are the materials of life itself. Science is part of the reality of living; it is the what, the how, and the why of everything in our experience. It is impossible to understand man without understanding his environment and the forces that have molded him physically and mentally.
— Rachel Carson
Address upon receiving National Book Award at reception, Hotel Commodore, New York (27 Jan 1952). As cited in Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature (1997), 218-219.
Those who dwell as scientists … among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
— Rachel Carson
In The Sense of Wonder (1956, 1965), 88-89.
See also:
- 27 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Carson's birth.
- Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Rachel Carson.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
