The impulse to mar and to destroy is as ancient and almost as nearly universal as the impulse to create. The one is an easier way than the other of demonstrating power.

Civilizations die from philosophical calm, irony, and a sense of fair play quite as surely as they die of debauchery.

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.

Being the inventor of sex would seem to be a sufficient distinction for a creature just barely large enough to be seen by the naked eye.

And the thing which is missing is love, some feeling for, as well as some understanding of, the inclusive community of rocks and soils, plants and animals, of which we are a part.

The famous balance of nature is the most extraordinary of all cybernetic systems. Left to itself, it is always self-regulated.

The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.