Only those within whose own consciousness the sun rise and set, the leaves burgeon and wither, can be said to be aware of what living is.

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.

Perhaps we are wiser, less foolish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfect in all these things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both.

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

A book ... unlike a television program, moving picture or any other 'modern means of communication' ... can wait for years, yet be available at any moment when it happens to be needed.

Is it wholly fantastic to admit the possibility that Nature herself strove toward what we call beauty? Face to face with any one of the elaborate flowers which man's cultivation has had nothing to do with, it does not seem fantastic to me. We put survival first. But when we have a margin of safety left over, we expend it in the search for the beautiful. Who can say that Nature does not do the same?

Though we face the facts of sex we are more reluctant than ever to face the fact of death or the crueler facts of life, either biological or social.