All the great naturalists have been habitual walkers, for no laboratory, no book, car, train or plane takes the place of honest footwork for this calling, be it amateur's or professional's.
Donald C. PeattieLife is a phenomenon sui generis, a primal fact in its own right, like energy. Cut flesh or wood how you like, hack at them in a baffled furyโyou cannot find life itself, you can only see what it built out of the lifeless dust.
Donald C. PeattieAs the brain of man is the speck of dust in the universe that thinks, so the leavesโthe fern and the needled pine and the latticed frond and the seaweed ribbonโperceive the light in a fundamental and constructive sense. โฆ Their leaves see the light, as my eyes can never do. โฆ They impound its stellar energy, and with that force they make life out of the elements.
Donald C. PeattieThere are always some of us, not a few, in every generation, who go over wholly to the green flag. It is such a passionless fealty, so reticent a love, that neither do trumpets sound for it nor quarrels arise from it. Only, you will find that those who have pledged allegiance are happy about it in quiet.
Donald C. Peattie