When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
What other species now require of us is our attention. Otherwise, we are entering a narrative of disappearing intelligences.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We must pay attention to other species to prevent their extinction and the loss of biodiversity.
Terry Tempest Williams highlights the urgent need for humans to recognize and honor the existence of other species. If we neglect this responsibility, we risk creating a future devoid of diverse intelligences and ecological richness, ultimately diminishing the value of life on Earth.
Themes
AttentionSpeciesExtinctionBiodiversityIntelligence
In practice
Example use cases
During a conservation seminar, I quoted Terry Tempest Williams to emphasize the importance of protecting endangered species.
More from Terry Tempest Williams
All quotes βThe human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinion? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow citizens to join us in our determined pursuit-a living democracy?
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn, and to sing at dusk, was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
I am slowly, painfully discovering that my refuge is not found in my mother, my grandmother, of even the birds of Bear River. My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn to love death then I can begin to find refuge in change.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
How do we remain faithful to our own spiritual imagination and not betray what we know in our own bodies? The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
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I am absolutely enraptured by the atmosphere of a wreck. A dead ship is the house of a tremendous amount of life-fish and plants. The mixture of life and death is mysterious, even religious. There is the same sense of peace and mood that you feel on entering a cathedral.
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I'm not a preacher, and I'm certainly not a good example, but I have my own feelings about God. I'm kind of a nature guy. My cathedral is forests, or the prairies, or the beach.
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O thou who passest through our valleys in Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat That flames from their large nostrils! Thou, O Summer, Oft pitchest here thy golden tent, and oft Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.
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There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
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