Quotes from Carl Safina

UmysÅ' czÅ'owieka i sÅ'onia ksztaÅ'towaÅ' siÄ™, gdy poruszaliÅ›my siÄ™ po takim samym krajobrazie, radzÄ…c sobie z tymi samymi wyzwaniami, mierzÄ…c dÅ'ugo?? dni w oparciu o wysoko?? tego samego sÅ'oÅ"ca, a nocami nasÅ'uchujÄ…c odgÅ'osów tych samych niebezpieczeÅ"stw. JesteÅ›my zsynchronizowani, bo zasadniczo mamy podobne pochodzenie.

It is said that humans are defined and distinguished from other animals by our ability to use tools and language, but often I wonder if the most uniquely human trait is our ability to deceive ourselves.

the world appears beautiful so that the living may love being alive in it. Life has developed-and we have inherited-a sense of the beautiful to let us feel at home in the world, without further reason.

Dawn begins pushing back the covers of night and the sun rolls out of bed.

Caltech brain researcher John Allman says that through agriculture and other ways of reducing daily hazards of existence, humans domesticated themselves. We now depend on others to provide food and our shelter. We're a lot like poodles in that regard.

have our brains retained or even reinvented aesthetics that arose in other lines of life? If so, our convergence with insects is a mystery worthy of awe for the little elders at our feet and flitting among the the flowers of our gardens. Regardless of who gets our thanks for the honor, there is no more wondrous fact than that we are kin, bee and bird of paradise- and great elephant- stardust, all.

Whales are vocal, but they lack a political voice. They, too, are like tribal people, like peasants, natives, like the poor and most of us: underrepresented, rolled by the big money of strong-armed, weak-minded people who never grasp that they already have too much, who are politically connected yet so lethally out of touch with themselves and the world.

In Yellowstone, where ravens have dotted their black exclamation points onto the white pages of the snows of many thousands of winters

It's been said that no two species are more alike than wolves and humans. If you watch wolves not just in all their beauty and adaptability but in all their brutality, it's hard to escape that conclusion.

It's been said that no two species are more alike than wolves and humans. If you watch wolves not just in all their beauty and adaptability but in all their brutality, it's hard to escape that conclusion. Living as we do in family packs, fending off the human wolves among us, managing the wolves within us, we can easily recognize in real wolves their social dilemmas and their status quests. No wonder Native Americans saw wolves as a sibling spirit.

Beneath the skin, kin.

Wolves and humans can understand each other better. That's one reason why we invited wolves, instead of chimpanzees, into our lives. Wolves and dogs and us; it's not surprising that we found one another. We deserve one another. We were made for one another.

Spróbujmy innego eksperymentu: potknij siÄ™ o psa przez przypadek, a potem specjalnie go kopnij. Sprawd?, czy zrozumie intencjÄ™.

For the people in these pages who watch ad truly listen, who tell us what they are hearing in other voices that share our air, and in the silence.

In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

I see many colors. They smell many scents. Our experience isn't the same. But it's comparably vivid.

The whales consider themselves different individuals, so we have to treat them that way. Think of tribes. Tribes of other beings. Other beings with other minds living other lives on the same planet. Different, certainly. But fundamentally not really very different. They mean something to one another, and so their lives mean something to them. Perhaps that should mean something to us.

But one doesn't wait for a revolution. One becomes it.

The main characteristic of an alpha male wolf," Rick says, "is a quiet confidence, quiet self-assurance. You know what you want to do; you know what's best for the pack. You're very comfortable with that. You have a calming effect. Point is, alpha males are surprisingly nonaggressive, because they don't need to be.

When a poacher kills an elephant, he doesn't just kill the elephant who dies. The family may lose the crucial memory of their elder matriarch, who knew where to travel during the very toughest years of drought to reach the food and water that would allow them to continue living. Thus one bullet may, years later, bring more deaths.

Shrinking forests, melting ice, plowed grasslands, raging fires, drying rivers, and dying corals — diminished of all the major habitats, proxy for all who live therein, means that the numbers of free-living animals are the lowest ever, and mostly falling, across the board. It means something acutely awful, I think: that the human species has made itself incompatible with the rest of Life on Earth.

Watch. Simply listen. They will not speak to us, but to one another they say much. Some of it, we hear. The rest is beyond words. I want to listen, to open to the possibilities.

The more humans fill the world, the more we empty it.

This litany of loss […] is the profile of a species going extinct. In a generation or two the memory of wild Africa will be lost as utterly as an American prairie of head high wild flowers swirled by bison, darkened by wild pigeons, bordered by towering forests of chestnuts, as it all was mere moments ago.