Quotes about nature and animals | Quotes of famous people

“At times, he yearns for the few pockets of darkness that remain on this night so illuminated by that cursed moon, by the despicable stars, by the cursed vehicles, by the hateful city.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

“Before becoming godín, Jaime worked for a miserable 79 mexican pesos an hour as a subject professor in one of the many universities in Guadalajara; very little for any future aspirations and very little for any present aspirations.”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

“Suddenly, as the sun rose, the poem flew without an owner, while he faded away like a fiction called a “story.””

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

“She, perhaps, with a consciousness that many of us in adulthood lack or simply lost, would associate that so much water falling on our fat and heavy heads was due to the crying of some poet who was walking by.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

“Soon the crashes, the blackouts, the hypothermias, the demands for public lighting and a lot of misdeeds will hide the disappearances, the plots, the deaths, the domestic violence, the corruptions and a long etcetera…”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

“That work pride, that ridiculous work pride has put an end to his illusions, with those few illusions that he still had since at school they promised him a magnificent future just for entering university.”

José Baroja book No fue un catorce de febrero y otros cuentos

“In a spiral galaxy, the ratio of dark-to-light matter is about a factor of ten. That's probably a good number for the ratio of our ignorance-to-knowledge. We're out of kindergarten, but only in about third grade.”

Vera Rubin (1928–2016) American astronomer

“You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.”

Tom Hiddleston (1981) English actor, producer and musical performer

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

“One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature (1963)
Context: It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it. You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines? One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it. One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better.

“I am the one who will crush the Qing utterly. With the power of sun and moon I will smash through the boundaries of Helanshan pass. With fire and fury I shall come to the city of the Nanluo kings, and the might of the Yanhuang will rise again.”

Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) Chinese physician, politician and revolutionary

Legacy of the Hegemon (1902)

“The Chinese people have only family and clan solidarity; they do not have national spirit…they are just a heap of loose sand…Other men are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat.”

Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) Chinese physician, politician and revolutionary

China as a Heap of Loose Sand (1924)

“We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from the street:
it is time they knew!
It is time the stone made an effort to flower,
time unrest had a beating heart.
It is time it were time.It is time.”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

"Corona" In: Paul Celan, ‎Pierre Joris (2005). Paul Celan: Selections. p. 44

“They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), IV
Context: They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe; they had no creed, but they had a certain knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature, then there would come for them, for the living and for the dead, a still greater fullness of contact with the whole of the universe. They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste, not pining for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which they talked to one another.

“Why walk with half measures, animals know much more than people, above all because they feel more freely than most of these and, therefore, as Kafka says, they are possessors of all the knowledge about this life. They are just too humble to show it off.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Original: Para qué andar con medias tintas, los animales saben mucho más que las personas, ante todo porque sienten con más libertad que la mayoría de estas y, por ello, como dice Kafka, son poseedores de todo el conocimiento acerca de esta vida. Solo que son muy humildes para hacer gala de ello.
Source: Baroja, José. (2020). "Orfeo". En El lado oscuro de la sombra y otros ladridos. Lima: Ediquid, ISBN:978-980-7641-67-8; p. 40.

“I can talk to fish!" Angel said happily, water dripping off her long, skinny body. "Ask one over for dinner," Fang said, joining us.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

“Women are beautiful in the light of the day, but are even more so in the shadows of the night.”

Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer

Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)

“On Monday the 9th of the first Jumada, we got out of the suburbs of Agra, on our journey (safar) for the Holy War, and dismounted in the open country, where we remained three or four days to collect our army and be its rallying-point…On this occasion I received a secret inspiration and heard an infallible voice say: 'Is not the time yet come unto those who believe, that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of Allah, and that truth which hath been revealed? Thereupon we set ourselves to extirpate the things of wickedness…
Above all, adequate thanks cannot be rendered for a benefit than which none is greater in the world and nothing is more blessed, in the world to come, to wit, victory over most powerful infidels and dominion over wealthiest heretics, these are the unbelievers, the wicked.'In the eyes of the judicious, no blessing can be greater than this…. Previous to the rising in Hindustan of the Sun of dominion and the emergence there of the light of the Shahansha's (i. e. Babur's) Khalifate the authority of that execrated pagan (Sanga) - at the Judgment Day he shall have no friend - was such that not one of all the exalted sovereigns of this wide realm, such as the Sultan of Delhi, the Sultan of Gujarat and the Sultan of Mandu, could cope with this evil-dispositioned one, without the help of other pagans…
Ten powerful chiefs, each the leader of a pagan host, uprose in rebellion, as smoke rises, and linked themselves, as though enchained, to that perverse one (Sanga); and this infidel decade who, unlike the blessed ten, uplifted misery-freighted standards which denounce unto them excruciating punishment, had many dependents, and troops, and wide-extended lands…. The protagonists of the royal forces fell, like divine destiny, on that one-eyed Dajjal who to understanding men, shewed the truth of the saying, When Fate arrives, the eye becomes blind, and setting before their eyes the scripture which saith, whosoever striveth to promote the true religion, striveth for the good of his own soul, they acted on the precept to which obedience is due, Fight against infidels and hypocrites…
The pagan right wing made repeated and desperate attack on the left wing of the army of Islam, falling furiously on the holy warriors, possessors of salvation, but each time was made to turn back or, smitten with the arrows of victory, was made to descend into Hell, the house of perdition: they shall be thrown to bum therein, and an unhappy dwelling shall it be. Then the trusty amongst the nobles, Mumin Ataka and Rustam Turkman betook themselves to the rear of the host of darkened pagans…
At the moment when the holy warriors were heedlessly flinging away their lives, they heard a secret voice say, Be not dismayed, neither be grieved, for, if ye believe, ye shall be exalted above the unbelievers, and from the infallible Informer heard the joyful words, Assistance is from Allah, and a speedy victory! And do thou bear glad tiding to true believers. Then they fought with such delight that the plaudits of the saints of the Holy Assembly reached them and the angels from near the Throne, fluttered round their heads like moths.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Babur writing about the battle against the Rajput Confederacy led by Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. In Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 547-572.

“[Hindustan] is a wonderful country. Compared with our countries it is a different world; its mountains, rivers, jungles and deserts, its towns, its cultivated lands, its animals and plants, its peoples and their tongues, its rains, and its winds, are all different. …Once the water of Sind is crossed, everything is in the Hindustan way, land, water, tree, rock, people and horde, opinion and custom.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

“Hindustan is a country which has few pleasures to recommend it…. Indians have no idea of the charms of friendly society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse…. They have no horses, no good grapes, or musk melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no bath or colleges, no candles, no torches, not a candle stick”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

First Mughal emperor Babur wrote in his autobiography Tuzk-e-Babri