You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.
Interpretation
The Grand Canyon is a vast and complex landscape that cannot be fully appreciated at once; it requires time and effort to explore its depths.
John Wesley Powell's quote emphasizes the idea that the Grand Canyon, much like many significant experiences in life, cannot be understood or appreciated in a single glance. Instead, it invites us to invest time and effort to explore its intricate details, suggesting that true understanding comes from gradual exploration and perseverance rather than superficial observation.
In practice
In a motivational speech about the process of achieving goals, this quote can illustrate the value of perseverance.
The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.
I pledge allegiance to the soil _x000D_ of Turtle Island, _x000D_ and to the beings who thereon dwell _x000D_ one ecosystem _x000D_ in diversity _x000D_ under the sun _x000D_ With joyful interpenetratio n for all.
The river Rhine, it is well known, _x000D_ _x000D_ Doth wash your city of Cologne; _x000D_ _x000D_ But tell me, nymphs! what power divine _x000D_ _x000D_ Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
When you have an intense contact of love with nature or another human being, like a spark, then you understand that there is no time and that everything is eternal.
Those trees are your lungs. The earth recycles as your body. The rivers recycle as your circulation. The air is your breath. So what do we call the environment?
I want us to save the creation-not just care about it, but to save it.
To drown a river beneath its own impounded water, by damming, is to kill what it was and to settle for something else. When the damming happens without good reason . . . then it's a tragedy of diminishment for the whole planet, a loss of one more wild thing, leaving Earth just a little flatter and tamer and simpler and uglier than before.
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