We cannot live without the Earth or apart from it, and something is shrivelled in a man's heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes our vital connection to the Earth and the loss we experience when we ignore it.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings suggests that human beings are intrinsically connected to the Earth; our well-being and emotional fulfillment depend on our relationship with the natural world. When we prioritize only human issues at the expense of our environment, we lose a fundamental part of ourselves, which leads to emotional emptiness and a disconnection from life itself.
In practice
During a speech at an environmental summit, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of caring for our planet.
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river where it flows among green airs and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.... Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.
We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.
Nothing on earth is so weak and yielding as water, but for breaking down the firm and strong it has no equal.
Though not a natural world by any means, more like a collection of living dioramas, a zoo exists in its own time zone, somewhere between the seasonal sense of animals and our madly ticking watch time.
There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.
In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it perches.
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