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Is it the right of this, our generation, in its selfish materialism, to destroy these things because we are blinded by the dollar sign? Beauty-and all the values the derive from beauty-are not measured and evaluated in terms of the dollar.

— Rachel Carson Speech (1954)

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More quotes by Rachel Carson

In our modern world nothing may be taken for granted-not even the spring songs that herald the return of the birds.

Vanishing Americans (1959)

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)

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

As human beings, we are part of the whole stream of life.

Speech (1954)

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.

Silent Spring (1962)

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Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

Democritus Freeman (1948)

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

William Wordsworth

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

André Gide The Immoralist (1902)

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.

William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Rachel Carson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.