Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Visitors in the Night


Lying under an acacia tree [in East Africa] with the sounds of dawn around me, I realized ... that the construction of an airplane, for instance, is simple when compared to the evolutionary achievement of a bird; that airplanes depend on an advanced civilization; and that where civilization is most advanced, few birds exit. I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes ... Civilization is progress and aviation a boon only if life improves because of them ... [T]he final answer will be given not by our amassment of knowledge, or by the discoveries of our science, or by the speed of our aircraft, but by the effect our civilized activities as a whole have upon the quality of our planet's life -- the life of plants and animals as well as that of man.
Charles Lindbergh,
"Is Civilization Progress?"
Reader's Digest, 1964
Labels: birds, photography
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