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Loren Eiseley

Loren Eiseley Quotes

Science writer

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Famous Loren Eiseley Quotes

“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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“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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“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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“Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war... Mostly the animals understand their roles, but man, by comparison, seems troubled by a message that, it is often said, he cannot quite remember or has gotten wrong... Bereft of instinct, he must search continually for meanings... Man was a reader before he became a writer, a reader of what Coleridge once called the mighty alphabet of the universe.”

MenLongSaidWarSeemsRememberUniverseWalksAnimalRolesReaderMessagesInstinctShoesAncientBeachComparisonUrgesRefugeeGarmentsAlphabetHomesickTimberSeaweedBereft
Author:Loren Eiseley
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“Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.”

LongWarWalksSeaOceanShoesAncientBeachUrgesRefugeeGarmentsHomesickTimberSeaweedOcean SeaBereftOceans And SeasSeashoreBeach And OceanBeach OceanSea And SkySea And BeachAvengingWalking On The Beach
Book:The Unexpected Universe: A Library of America eBook Classic
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