Our concern with environment cannot be reduced to what can be used, to what can be grasped. Environment includes not only the inkstand and the blotting paper, but also the impenetrable stillness in the air, the stars, the clouds, the quiet passing of time, the wonder of my own being. I am an end as well as a means, and so is the world: an end as well as a means. My view of the world and my understanding of the self determine each other. Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the world becomes a market place for you. The complete manipulation of the world results in the complete instrumentalization of the self.
Humankind will not die out for lack of information, but for we may perish for want of appreciation.
In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.
– Abraham Joshua Heschel
http://heschel.org.il/eng/Heschel