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Loren Eiseley

Loren Eiseley Books

Science writer

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“Man would not be man if his dreams did not exceed his grasp. ... Like John Donne, man lies in a close prison, yet it is dear to him. Like Donne's, his thoughts at times overleap the sun and pace beyond the body. If I term humanity a slime mold organism it is because our present environment suggest it. If I remember the sunflower forest it is because from its hidden reaches man arose. The green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must still seek refuge there. ... If I dream by contrast of the eventual drift of the star voyagers through the dilated time of the universe, it is because I have seen thistledown off to new worlds and am at heart a voyager who, in this modern time, still yearns for the lost country of his birth.”

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Book:The Invisible Pyramid
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“Black magic, the magic of the primeval chaos, blots out or transmogrifies the true form of things. At the stroke of twelve the princess must flee the banquet or risk discovery in the rags of a kitchen wench; coach reverts to pumpkin. Instability lies at the heart of the world. With uncanny foresight folklore has long toyed symbolically with what the nineteenth century was to proclaim a reality - namely, that form is an illusion of the time dimension, that the magic flight of the pursued hero or heroine through frogskin and wolf coat has been, and will continue to be, the flight of all men.”

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Book:The Star Thrower
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“Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up. As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean. He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?" The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean." "I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man. To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die." Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!" At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one.”

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Author:Loren Eiseley
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“If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession. If you fear the sound of water hurrying through crevices toward unknown and mysterious destinations, do not consider it. Seek out the sunshine. It is a simple prescription. Avoid the darkness.”

IfsLightNightSoundBlackWaterSimpleSilenceDarknessBearsProfessionMysteriousSunshineDestinationDislikePrescriptionsHurryingChasmsDarkness To LightYawningCreviceSound Of Water
Book:The Night Country: A Library of America eBook Classic
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“In the end, science as we know it has two basic types of practitioners. One is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail's eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ. The second kind of observer is the extreme reductionist who is so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle, to intangibles not worth troubling one's head about.”

KnowsMenKindHas BeensStillsTwoEndsLightEyeScienceWonderMysteryTypeUniversalBusyExtremesEducatedControlledDelicateOrgansObserversTriflesSense Of WonderSnailStrippingEducated Man
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“Nothing grows among its pinnacles; there is no shade except under great toadstools of sandstone whose bases have been eaten to the shape of wine glasses by the wind. Everything is flaking, cracking, disintegrating, wearing away in the long, inperceptible weather of time. The ash of ancient volcanic outbursts still sterilizes its soil, and its colors in that waste are the colors that flame in the lonely sunsets on dead planets.”

LongHas BeensStillsGrowsColorPlanetsWindShapesWasteLonelyBasesWineAncientGlassesWeatherFlamesSoilSunsetShadeAshesWine GlassPinnacleOutburstToadstoolsSandstone
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“It is commonplace of all religious thought that the man seeking visions and insight must go apart from his fellows and live for a while in the wilderness. If he is of proper sort, he will return with a message. It may not be a message from the god he set out to seek but even if he has failed in that particular, he will have had a vision or seen a marvel and these are always worth listening to or thinking about.”

IfsThinkingMenMayReligiousVisionParticularHe ManListeningReturnMessagesFellowsSeekingInsightWildernessCommonplace
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“Though men in the mass forget the origins of their need, they still bring wolfhounds into city apartments, where dog and man both sit brooding in wistful discomfort. The magic that gleams an instant between Argos and Odysseus is both the recognition of diversity and the need for affection across the illusions of form. It is nature's cry to homeless, far-wandering, insatiable man: "Do not forget your brethren, nor the green wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster.”

MenNeedsStillsFormForgetCitiesMagicDogCryDiversityMassIllusionGreenAffectionWoodsDisasterWanderRecognitionInstantInvitesApartmentHomelessDiscomfortBrethrenInsatiableGleamBroodingOdysseus
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“As we passed under a streetlamp I noticed, beside my own bobbing shadow, another great, leaping grotesquerie that had an uncanny suggestion of the frog world about it . . . judging from the shadow, it was soaring higher and more gaily than myself. 'Very well,' you will say, 'Why didn’t you turn around. That would be the scientific thing to do.' But let me tell you it is not done ― not on an empty road at midnight.”

WorldWellsDoneWould BeTurnsMy OwnJudgingHigherShadowEmptyLet MeThings To DoSuggestionsSoarMidnightFrogsUncanny
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“Since the first human eye saw a leaf in Devonian sandstone and a puzzled finger reached to touch it, sadness has lain over the heart of man. By this tenuous thread of living protoplasm, stretching backward into time, we are linked forever to lost beaches whose sands have long since hardened into stone. The stars that caught our blind amphibian stare have shifted far or vanished in their courses, but still that naked, glistening thread winds onward. No one knows the secret of its beginning or its end. Its forms are phantoms. The thread alone is real; the thread is life.”

KnowsMenFirstsHumansHeartLongStillsRealEndsEyeFormCoursesLostStarsSecretForeverSawsSadnessWindStonesBlindFingersCaughtNakedBeachStaringSandThreadLeafsLinkedStretchingPhantomsHardenedPuzzledHuman EyesAmphibiansSandstone
Book:The Firmament of Time: A Library of America eBook Classic
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“This is the most enormous extension of vision of which life is capable: the projection of itself into other lives. This is the lonely, magnificent power of humanity. It is . . . the supreme epitome of the reaching out.”

Life IsHumanityVisionCapableEmpathyLonelySupremeEnormousReachingReach OutMagnificentExtensionsProjectionEpitome
Book:The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature
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“Perhaps a creature of so much ingenuity and deep memory is almost bound to grow alienated from his world, his fellows, and the objects around him. He suffers from a nostalgia for which there is no remedy upon earth except as it is to be found in the enlightenment of the spirit--some ability to have a perceptive rather than an exploitive relationship with his fellow creatures.”

WorldEarthSpiritSufferingFoundGrowsNatureMemoriesAbilityObjectsCreaturesEnlightenmentFellowsBoundsNostalgiaRemedyAlienationIngenuity
Book:The Invisible Pyramid: A Library of America eBook Classic
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“The need is not really for more brains, the need is now for a gentler, a more tolerant people than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger and the bear. The hand that hefted the ax, out of some old blind allegiance to the past fondles the machine gun as lovingly. It is a habit man will have to break to survive, but the roots go very deep.”

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Author:Loren Eiseley
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“Animals are molded by natural forces they do not comprehend. To their minds there is no past and no future. There is only the everlasting present of a single generation, its trails in the forest, its hidden pathways in the the air and in the sea. There is nothing in the Universe more alone than Man. He has entered into the strange world of history.”

MenWorldMindPastUniverseForceNaturalAnimalHistoryGenerationsAirSeaStrangeForestsEverlastingTrailsPathwaysStrange World
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“A man who has once looked with the archaeological eye will never see quite normally. He will be wounded by what other men call trifles. It is possible to refine the sense of time until an old shoe in the bunch grass or a pile of nineteenth century beer bottles in an abandoned mining town tolls in one's head like a hall clock.”

MenEyeScienceCenturyTownsShoesBunchBeerClockGrassHallsBottlesAbandonedWoundedTriflesNineteenth CenturyTollsMiningOld Shoes
Book:The Night Country: A Library of America eBook Classic
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“Some degree of withdrawal serves to nurture man's creative powers. The artist and the scientist bring out of the dark void, like the mysterious universe itself, the unique, the strange, the unexpected. Numerous observers have testified upon the loneliness of the process.”

MenArtistUniverseProcessDarkCreativityCreativeLonelinessStrangeDegreesUniqueScientistMysteriousUnexpectedVoidNurtureObserversWithdrawalCreative PowerMysterious Universe
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“After chiding the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past.”

LongTodayPastFoundEffortTakenPositionEvolutionMiracleMythMythologyAssumptionTheologianRelianceOrigin Of LifePrimeval
Book:The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature
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