William Beebe

The isness of things is well worth studying; but it is the whyness that makes life worth living.

Charles William ("Will") Beebe (1877-07-29 – 1962-06-04) was an American naturalist, explorer, and author.

Sourced

A vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.

• To be a Naturalist is better than to be a King.
  • Journal (31 December 1893)

• The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.
  • The Bird (1906)

• These descents of mine beneath the sea seemed to partake of a real cosmic character. First of all there was the complete and utter loneliness and isolation, a feeling wholly unlike the isolation felt when removed from fellow men by mere distance ... . It was a loneliness more akin to a first venture upon the moon or Venus than that from a plane in mid-ocean or a stance on Mount Everest: no whit more wonderful than these feats, but different.
  • Half Mile Down (1951), p. 148

• The isness of things is well worth studying; but it is their whyness that makes life worth living.
  • As quoted in On Agression by Konrad Lorenz (1963)

External links

• "William Beebe: Going Deeper"
• Works by William Beebe at Project Gutenberg
• William Beebe essay from 1918: A Naturalist in Paris
• William Beebe Tropical Research Station