Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places.
Henry BestonRead
Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes how modern civilization has distanced itself from the natural world, particularly the night.
Henry Beston highlights the disconnect between contemporary society and the natural environment, particularly the experience of night. In an age dominated by artificial light and urban living, the profound beauty and significance of the night have been overshadowed, leading to a loss of connection with nature and its rhythms.
Themes
CivilizationNatureNightDisconnectUrban
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental awareness, one could use this quote to illustrate the need to reconnect with our natural surroundings.
More from Henry Beston
All quotes βIf there is one thing clear about the centuries dominated by the factory and the wheel, it is that although the machine can make everything from a spoon to a landing-craft, a natural joy in earthly living is something it never has and never will be able to manufacture.
Henry BestonRead
Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night from the experience of man, there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity.
Henry BestonRead
The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter woods.
Henry BestonRead
When the Pleiades and the wind in the grass are no longer a part of the human spirit, a part of very flesh and bone, man becomes, as it were, a kind of cosmic outlaw, having neither the completeness nor integrity of the animal nor the birthright of a true humanity.
Henry BestonRead
Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it.
Henry BestonRead
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