To everyone's surprise, wildlife abounds in the deserted environs of the doomed [Chernobyl] nuclear plant. Elk, wild pigs, wolves, and rabbits all seem to be flourishing. These animals have somehow learned to cope with the high levels of radiation. Who knows, perhaps there are mutations: A pig that can climb. A rabbit with a prehensile tail. An elk with a unicorn's horn. Cells are quick-change artists. Life loves life. Humans may end, but the world won't.

life danger nature disaster animals wildlife nuclear power mutation

About Sybil Smith

Sybil Smith (born November 23, 1966) is an American former collegiate swimmer. She is the first African-American female swimmer to be named a first-team Division I All-American, and the only All-American in Boston University women's swimming history. Her daughter Sloane Stephens is a Grand Slam champion tennis player.

More quotations tagged with “animals”

It's always been and always will be the same in the world: the horse does the work, and the coachman is tipped.

power work animals control enslavement

The cat is a dilettante in fur.

—Théophile Gautier

cats animals fur

Many things that human words have upset are set at rest again by the silence of animals. Animals move through the world like a caravan of silence. A whole world, that of nature and that of animals, is filled with silence. Nature and animals seem like protuberances of silence. The silence of animals and the silence of nature would not be so great and noble if it were merely a failure of language to materialize. Silence has been entrusted to the animals and to nature as something created for its own sake.

silence nature animals

The sense of smell in the animal is what intuition is to the human spirit. It tells you of the invisible, of what cannot be detected by any other means. It tells you the things that are not there, yet are coming. You see into the blind, opaque past and round the corner of time.

—Laurens Van der Post

invisible spirit smell animals blindness

Some animals, like some men, leave a trail of glory behind them. They give their spirit to the place where they have lived, and remain forever a part of the rocks and streams and the wind and sky.

—Marguerite Henry

life achievement permanence animals glory

History

23 Nov 2014 Added