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

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.

The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.

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.

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

We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven't become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.