One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew i would never see it again?

Autumn comes to the sea with a fresh blaze of phosphorescence, when every wave crest is aflame. Here and there the whole surface may glow with sheets of cold fire, while below schools of fish pour through the water like molten metal.

The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance.

In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.

There is one quality that characterizes all of us who deal with the sciences of the earth and its life - we are never bored.

Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good?

To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.