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Bird, Nature, and Conservation Quotes from Inspirational Americans Looking for
that "right" bird conservation quotation for your next speech,
flyer, or event? These are
quotes from deceased Americans (mostly United States residents and a
Canadian or two). The quotes
are organized by theme: Nature, Birds,
and Conservation. This
collection of favorites was assembled by Paul Baicich, Roxanne Bogart,
and Chris Eberly. "Everybody
needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, "When
we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything
else in the Universe" "I thought
of my friends who never take walks in Oklahoma 'for there was nothing
to see.' "The
study of nature is a limitless field, the most fascinating adventure
in the world." "Unfortunately,
especially in the United States, it has become the fashion to write
up researches so stiffly, matter-of-factly, and technically that all
feeling and atmosphere have been banished from too many of them." "Sight
is a faculty; seeing, an art." "The
objective is to teach the student to see the land, to understand what
he sees, and enjoy what he understands." "Our
ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty." "For
observing nature, the best pace is a snail's pace." "Those
who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that
will endure as long as life lasts." "In
wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific
accomplishments fade to trivia." "The
world is full of signals that we don't perceive." "Study
nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you." "I go
to Nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune
once more." "We
can never have enough of nature" "We
need the tonic of wildness." "The
traveler must be born again on the road, and earn a passport from the
elements." "I went
to the woods because I wished to live deliberately... I wanted to live
deep and suck out all the marrow." "Why
not let all of nature possible into the school-room and into the school-books
at this season, and make the pupils feel that contact with nature is
essential to their daily health, joy, and success?" "I do
not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment
to turn to." "Birds,
it must be admitted, are the most exciting and most deserving of the
vertebrates; they are perhaps the best entrée into the study
of natural history, and a very good wedge into conservation awareness." "Birds
are an ecological litmus paper." "Birding,
after all, is just a game. Going beyond that is what is important." "Ducks
seem proportionately more plentiful than they really are because they
concentrate in large visible flocks "Incredible
as it may seem, almost complete ignorance reigned as to the life history
of this abundant, friendly, and well-nigh universally distributed bird
[song sparrow]. I went to the books and read that this species has two
notes beside the song, and that incubation lasted ten to fourteen days
and was performed by both sexes - meager enough information and all
of it wrong." "A bird
in the bush is worth two in the hand" "Hemispheric
solidarity is new among statesmen, but not among the feathered navies
of the sky." "A man
who never sees a bluebird only half lives. " "There
is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds...
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature
-- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter..." "I know
I am engaged in an arduous undertaking, but if I live to complete it,
I will offer to my country "These
wonderful nurseries [Northern gannet colonies] must be finally destroyed,
and in less than half a century, "The
gradual knowledge of the forms and habits of the birds of our country
impressed me with the idea that each part of a family must possess a
certain degree of affinity, distinguishable at sight in any one of them." "To
the philosopher, as well as the naturalist, and to every man of feeling,
the manners, migration, and immense multitudes of birds in this country,
are subjects of interesting and instructive curiosity." "If
I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes." "Birds
should be saved for utilitarian reasons; and, moreover, they should
be saved because of reasons unconnected with dollars and cents. . .
[T]o lose the chance to see frigate-birds soaring in circles above the
storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson
afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad of terns flashing in the bright
light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach - why,
the loss is like the loss of a gallery "The
classification of living birds, or, for that matter, any other large
group of animals, "Hope
is the thing with feather "I hope
you love birds, too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven." "The
reason for studying any bird is to ascertain what it does... [T]o hear
some of our bird devotees talk, one would think that to be able to identify
a bird is all of bird study. On the contrary, the identification of
birds is simply the alphabet to the real study, the alphabet by means
of which we may spell out the life habits of the bird." "Be
grateful for luck. "You
know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly." "For
the whooping crane there is no freedom but that of unbounded wilderness,
no life except its own. "I never
heard a wood thrush until I was a grown man, though I must have been
surrounded by them every spring. "The
appearance of a familiar bird immediately awakens a train of forgotten
associations, "Then
migrating warblers, lemon-colored, whirled down along the frail branches
till I could hardly tell which were leaves and which were birds. I sat
down on roughened ivory grass to follow the warblers with my field glasses.
Scores of tiny birds, gay and quaint, making evanescent compositions
among the laced twigs." "To
learn how to identify a bird by its general outline, markings, and behavior
as a species belonging "It
was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed
with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores
of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the
fields and woods and marsh... "It
is interesting and encouraging to see how the whole world (our world!)
is waking up to our interest in birds. "The
cockroach and the bird were both here long before we were. Both could
get along very well without us; "The
philosophy that I have worked under most of my life is that the serious
study of natural history is an activity which has far-reaching effects
in every aspect of a person's life. It ultimately makes people protective
of the environment in a very committed way. It is my opinion that the
study of natural history should be the primary avenue for creating environmentalists..." "How
rich will we be when we have converted all our forests, our soil, our
water resources, and our minerals into cash?" "I'm
learning one thing the hard way... you have to re-educate the public
mind "Conservation...
is a positive exercise of skill and insight, not merely a negative exercise
of abstinence and caution..." "There
are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. ...Like
winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress
began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still
higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild,
and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more
important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is
a right as inalienable as free speech." "We
abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. "A thing
is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, "The
more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders "Like
the resource it seeks to protect, wildlife conservation must be dynamic,
"We
cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging
"I recognize
the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural
resources…but I do not recognize the right to waste them or to
rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us." "In
utilizing and conserving the natural resources of the Nation, the one
characteristic more essential than any other is foresight." "Wild
beasts and birds are by right not the property merely of the people
who are alive today, "It
is not what we have as a nation that makes us great; it is how we use
it." "What's
the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put
it on?" "The
most unhappy thing about conservation is that it is never permanent.
"If
people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called
vandals; "We
see nothing in the Constitution that compels the Government to sit by
"How
can any child who is unfamiliar with the animals, birds, plants, insects,
rocks, soils and water-powers of its own home neighborhood, develop
into a progressive citizen with respect to the proper use of these resources?"
"Not
everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be
counted counts." |
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