The Edmund Pettus Bridge - which in 2013 was declared a National Historic Landmark - isn't symbolic of the Civil War in a meaningful way. It is, however, the modern-day battlefield where the voting rights movement was born.
Douglas BrinkleyRead
It's very important that we keep these special, wild places. It defines the United States. Imagine our country without our national parks and our monuments. Here in California, imagine if you didn't have in Southern Cal the Channel Islands or the great Highway 1, Big Sur up to Point Reyes up to the Redwood country.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Protecting natural places is crucial for the identity of a country.
This quote emphasizes the importance of preserving wild and natural spaces, such as national parks and monuments, to define a nation's identity. It highlights the unique beauty and cultural heritage of specific regions, particularly in California, and suggests that these landscapes are integral to the American experience and pride.
Themes
NaturePreservationNational ParksIdentityBeauty
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation.
More from Douglas Brinkley
All quotes βIt's Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency. Clean Air and Water Acts. Endangered Species Act. Promoted affirmative action. One could go on and on with Nixon as a New Deal liberal on domestic policy and a hawk, but one with great geo-political skills.
Douglas BrinkleyRead
While the old spiritual 'Slavery Chain Done Broke at Last' was sung by blacks in the hours following the Appomattox surrender, racism sadly continues to be a crippling national scourge.
Douglas BrinkleyRead
One thing 'not right' on the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches is the sad fact that the Edmund Pettus Bridge hasn't been renamed the John Lewis Bridge.
Douglas BrinkleyRead
When we settled our country, the dark forest was considered in some ways evil and something that you needed to plow or, later, bulldoze. We now have a new understanding of the interconnectedness of ecosystems and the need for bird flyways and why all species matter.
Douglas BrinkleyRead
Similar quotes
I swam across the rocks and compared myself favorably with the sars. To swim fishlike, horizontally, was the logical method in a medium eight hundred times denser than air. To halt and hang attached to nothing, no lines or air pipe to the surface, was a dream. At night I had often had visions of flying by extending my arms as wings. Now I flew without wings. (Since that first aqualung flight, I have never had a dream of flying.)
Jacques Yves CousteauRead
Next time you're stunned by a large moon on the horizon, bend over and view it between your legs. The effect goes away entirely.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead
Nature gave us pain as a messaging device to tell us that we are approaching, or that we have exceeded, our limits in some way.
Ray DalioRead
...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.
Diane AckermanRead
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
Martin LutherRead
Nature-deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities.
Richard LouvRead