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

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.

Always the edge of the sea remains an elusive and indefinable boundary. The shore has a dual nature, changing with the swing of the tides, belonging now to the land, now to the sea.

Along with the possibility of extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man's total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm-substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends.

Until we have courage to recognize cruelty for what it is - whether its victim is human or animal - we cannot expect things to be much better in the world. There can be no double standard. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.

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