We are the islands.
Time washes around us and flows away and with it flow fragments of our lives.
So, little by little, each island shrinks…
But where, who can say, down the long stream of time, are our eroded days deposited?”
“The long fight to save wild beauty represents democracy at its best.
It requires citizens to practice the hardest of virtues--self-restraint.
Why cannot I take as many trout as I want from a stream?
Why cannot I bring home from the woods a rare wildflower?
Because if I do, everybody in this democracy should be able to do the same.
My act will be multiplied endlessly.
To provide protection for wildlife and wild beauty,
everyone has to deny himself proportionately.
Special privilege and conservation are ever at odds.”
“It is those who have compassion for all life who will best safeguard the life of [humanity].
Those who become aroused only when [humans are] endangered become aroused too late.
We cannot make the world uninhabitable for other forms of life and have it habitable for ourselves.
It is the conservationist who is concerned with the welfare of all the land and life of the country,
who, in the end, will do most to maintain the world as a fit place for human existence.”
"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."
~Wise quotes from naturalist, Edwin Way Teale, who was born June 2, 1899 and lived up until 1980, my senior year of high school. (So, I'm a little late in noting his birthday, but it was the right month, at least!)
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