I'm busy helping to develop a course called Nature Writing in America, and also preparing for a one-week stint teaching Adventures in Nature Journaling. Both of these endeavors involve crossing the squishy boundary between science and humanities. In the spirit of erasing such boundaries, I want to share from my "inspiring quotes" collection, statements by two of my favorite scientists who recognized the futility of having too narrow a perspective on trying to understand life on this planet and what our proper role might be.
"After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well." - Albert Einstein
"It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms." - George Wald
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
How about some Gary Snyder?
ReplyDelete"As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth...the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times."