'If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.'

'The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.'

- Marine biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

A quote by Florence Nightingale

"Poetry and imagination begin life."

Rachel Carson didn't argue for wholly organic farming

Her 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” inspired many people to consider the chemicals used to grow their food, but Carson didn’t think that manufactured fertilizers needed to be banned from farming, writing that “The ultimate answer is to use less toxic chemicals so that the public hazard from their misuse is greatly reduced.” When she testified to Congress in 1963, she said, “I think chemicals do have a place.”

'It might be that some day I shall be drowned by the sea, or die of pneumonia from sleeping out at night, or be robbed and strangled by strangers. These things happen. Even so, I shall be ahead because of trusting the beach, the night and strangers.'

-Janet Reno, the US' first female attorney general (1938-2016)

'When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top.'

- Author Jacqueline Susann (1918-1974)

'I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.'

- Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)

'The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first, Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd.'

- Poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

'Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.'

-Author and poet Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929)

'I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.'

- American novelist Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

'Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog' is an iconic romantic artwork

Caspar David Friedrich’s painting portrays man’s fascination with the natural world and emphasizes his smallness in the midst of its grandeur, epitomizing Edmund Burke's concept of "the sublime."

'Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.'

- Legendary author Jane Austen (1775 -1817)

'A word after a word after a word is power.'

- Author Margaret Atwood (1939-present)

John Steinbeck's 'Sea of Cortez,' a travelogue through the Gulf of California, is still used by ecologists today.

'I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.'

- Author Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

'Voices ought not be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth.'

- Iconic singer Sam Cooke (1931–1964)

Watch writer John Steinbeck's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

'There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.'

- Writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Underwater nighttime photos capture the ocean's diversity

Self-taught photographer Steven Kovacs explores Palm Beach's ocean after sunset, capturing tiny sea creatures in deep waters. Over eight years, he's dived into Florida's eastern coast, drifting from 0 to 100 feet, photographing rarely seen larval fish. Lacking formal marine biology training, Kovacs collaborates globally to identify species like cusk eels and the female blanket octopus, known for its revealing membrane. Check out his photos here.

‘Leaves of Grass’ remains relevant to American identity 170 years later

Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” is over 170 years old, but many say its poems are as relevant as ever. This podcast unpacks how Whitman constructed a dynamic, original text that would transcend his time and inspire generations of poets.

The Beats autobiographical impulse is still influential

The Beats autobiographical approach to literature is seen in contemporary autofiction. While autofiction emerged as a literary term in the 1970s, its philosophy has several antecedents, including Colette’s Claudine novels, Marcel Proust’s "In Search of Lost Time" and Beat writer Jack Kerouac’s "On the Road."

Inside 'Blood Meridian' author Cormac McCarthy's library of 20,000 books

The reclusive writer published 12 novels and taught himself stonemasonry and quantum physics, among myriad other skills and subjects. Since he died in 2023, scholars have been mining his personal library for lessons on his influences, interests, and more.

She sells seashells by the seashore or, more accurately, she sells dinosaur fossils along the Jurassic Coast

Now known as the mother of paleontology, Mary Anning was 12 years old in 1811 when her seashore scrounging uncovered an ichthyosaur fossil, the first complete one known to the London scientific community at the time. She spent the rest of her life contributing to a field that didn’t care to welcome her. This article details her life and work.

Characterizing Emily Dickinson's distinctive poetic style

Dickinson's poems are generally short, untitled works that are lyrical, which means they seek to express feelings rather than narrate stories. They're also infused with common meter, a rhythm used in much popular music, and deploy frequent dashes as both punctuation and an idiosyncratic poetic device.

O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became symbols for her fiction

O'Connor was drawn to peacocks because of their dichotomy—people were drawn to the beauty of their feathers but turned off by the ugliness of their behavior. It was an apt symbol for her fiction and the birds featured prominently on several of her books' covers.

Ursula K. Le Guin worked to dismantle fantasy's clichés

The author is one of the genre’s most legendary names, constructing high fantasies like “The Earthsea Cycle” that detail intricate new worlds. In 2004, she delivered a lecture criticizing books and movies that rely on a simple formula: white characters, Medieval settings, and a battle between good and evil. “Whenever I find a fantasy that is set in a genuinely imagined society and culture instead of this lazy-minded, recycled hokum,” she said, “I feel like setting off fireworks.”

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Brian Wilson wrote the Beach Boys' 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

When caught in the mouths of cardinal fish, seed shrimp release glowing, bioluminescent chemicals, which alert predators of the cardinal fish, prompting the shrimp's ejection.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.