I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

White contrasts modern humanity’s pride in technological cleverness (“outwit Nature”) with a humbler, older ethic of attentiveness and gratitude. The “bright future” he withholds optimism about is not merely material progress but moral and ecological maturity: a civilization that treats the natural world as an adversary to be defeated risks self-destruction. By urging people to “taste her sweetness,” he invokes direct, sensory appreciation of nature—an antidote to abstraction and exploitation. “Respecting her seniority” frames nature as ancient, prior, and authoritative, implying that human schemes are recent and fragile. The line functions as a concise environmental and spiritual admonition: wisdom lies in reverence and restraint, not domination.