Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.

The ocean is a place of paradoxes. It is the home of the great white shark, two-thousand-pound killer of the seas, and of the hundred-foot blue whale, the largest animal that ever lived. It is also the home of living things so small that your two hands might scoop up as many of them as there are stars in the Milky Way.

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

In nature nothing exists alone.

The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.

To understand the living present, and the promise of the future, it is necessary to remember the past.