I still feel there is a case to be made for my old belief that as man approaches the 'new heaven and the new earth' -- or the space-age universe, if you will, he must do so with humility rather than with arrogance.

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.

The more I learned about the use of pesticides, the more appalled I became. I realized that here was the material for a book. What I discovered was that everything which meant most to me as a naturalist was being threatened, and that nothing I could do would be more important.

Then the song of a whitethroat, pure and ethereal, with the dreamy quality of remembered joy.

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.

It is ironic to think that man might determine his own future by something so seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray.

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