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William Beebe

William Beebe Quotes

Ornithologist

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Famous William Beebe Quotes

“To write honestly and with conviction anything about the migration of birds, one should oneself have migrated. Somehow or other we should dehumanize ourselves, feel the feel of feathers on our body and wind in our wings, and finally know what it is to leave abundance and safety and daylight and yield to a compelling instinct, age-old, seeming at the time quite devoid of reason and object.”

KnowsFeelsShouldWritingReasonBodyAgeObjectsWindBirdSafetyWingsInstinctOneselfConvictionHonestlyAbundanceYieldCompellingFeathersDaylightSeemingMigration
Book:A Naturalist's Life of New York
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“The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.”

FirstsMayArtInspirationEarthLastsScienceIndividualHeavenRaceInspireExpressionMaterialsHard WorkGeniusHarmonyBreatheDestroyedWorks Of ArtComposerLiving ThingsSpecies Extinction
Author:William Beebe
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“In the course of time I have learned to tramp about coral reefs, twenty to thirty feet under water, so unconcernedly that I can pay attention to particular definite things. But after all my silly fears have been allayed, even now, with eyes overflowing with surfeit of color, I am still almost inarticulate. We need a whole new vocabulary, new adjectives, adequately to describe the designs and colors of under sea.”

NeedsHas BeensStillsI CanWholeEyeCoursesWaterPayAttentionSeaFeetDesignParticularColorOceanTwentiesSillyPay AttentionThirtyExplorationI Have LearnedDefiniteVocabularyAdjectivesReefsTrampsInarticulateOcean ExplorationCoral Reefs
Author:William Beebe
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“... the only other place comparable to these marvelous nether regions, must surely be naked space itself, out far beyond atmosphere, between the stars, where sunlight has no grip upon the dust and rubbish of planetary air, where the blackness of space, the shining planets, comets, suns, and stars must really be closely akin to the world of life as it appears to the eyes of an awed human being, in the open ocean, one half mile down.”

WorldHumansEyeStarsHuman BeingsSpaceHalfSunAirPlanetsOceanShiningMilesNakedDustAtmosphereRegionsExplorationSunlightMarvelousRubbishBlacknessOne HalfCometsOcean ExplorationSun And Stars
Author:William Beebe
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