A collection of quotes on the topic of nature, human, humanity, use.
“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”
“We don’t need natural disasters. We’re building our own.”
Source: The Australian Architects Offering Pro-Bono Design Services to Bushfire Survivors https://hivelife.com/architects-assist/.
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
“Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.”
Variant: Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.
“Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.”
1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience
Variant: Nature and books belong to all who see them.
“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Friendship
“In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life.”
Source: Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace
“As in everything, nature is the best instructor.”
“I believe that if you focus on what you should do, the road ahead will open up naturally.”
Other quotes, 2016
Original: (ja) 自分がすべきことを集中してやっていけば、自ずと道は開かれてくると信じているので。
Source: Interview at the arrival in Marseille ahead of the Grand Prix Final 2016, published 7 December 2016 by テレビ朝日 フィギュアスケート https://twitter.com/figureskate5ch/status/806400507698876416 (TV Asahi Figure Skate on Twitter). (Retrieved 11 September 2020)
Source: Fuente: https://portal.ucm.cl/noticias/academico-la-ucm-presento-segunda-antologia-hijo-perra-otros-cuentos
Gardens and orchards in the old Poland, "Aura" 11, 1987-11, p.17-18. http://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/508860
“Der erste Trunk aus dem Becher der Naturwissenschaft macht atheistisch, aber auf dem Grund des Bechers wartet Gott.” in 15 Jahrhunderte Würzburg: e. Stadt u. ihre Geschichte [15 centuries Würzburg. A city and its history] (1979), p. 205, by Heinz Otremba. Otremba does not declare his source, and the quote per se cannot be found in Heisenberg's published works.
The journalist Eike Christian Hirsch PhD, a personal acquaintance of Heisenberg, whom he interviewed for his 1981 book Expedition in die Glaubenswelt, claimed in de.wikiquote.org on 22 June 2015, that the content and style of the quote was completely foreign to Heisenberg's convictions and the way he used to express himself, and that Heisenberg's children, Dr. Maria Hirsch and Prof. Dr. Martin Heisenberg, did not recognize their father in this quote.
Statements similar to the quote were made by Francis Bacon, in "Of Atheism" (1601): "A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion", and Alexander Pope, in "An Essay on Criticism" (1709): "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."
There is a passage in a lengthy essay written by Heisenberg in 1942, "Ordnung der Wirklichkeit” ("Reality and Its Order"), published in Collected Works. Section C: Philosophical and Popular Writings. Volume I. Physics and Cognition. 1927-1955 (1984), that parallels the ideas expressed in the quote (albeit in a much expanded form):
"The first thing we could say was simply: 'I believe in God, the Father, the almighty creator of heaven and earth.' The next step — at least for our contemporary consciousness — was doubt. There is no god; there is only an impersonal law that directs the fate of the world according to cause and effect... And yet [today], we may with full confidence place ourselves into the hands of the higher power who, during our lifetime and in the course of the centuries, determines our faith and therewith our world and our fate." (English translation by M.B.Rumscheidt and N. Lukens, available at http://www.heisenbergfamily.org/t-OdW-english.htm)
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, a protégé of Heisenberg, did publish a version of the quote itself in Die Geschichte der Natur (The History of Nature) (1948), appearing to consider it an adage:
"Aus dem Denken gibt es keinen ehrlichen Rückweg in einen naiven Glauben. Nach einem alten Satz trennt uns der erste Schluck aus dem Becher der Erkenntnis von Gott, aber auf dem Grunde des Bechers wartet Gott auf den, der ihn sucht. Wenn es so ist, dann gibt es einen Weg des Denkens, der vorwärts zu religiösen Wahrheiten führt, und nur diesen Weg zu suchen ist lohnend. Wenn es nicht so ist, wird unsere Welt auf die Religion ihre Hoffnungen vergeblich setzen." ("From thinking there is no honest way back into a naive belief. According to an old phrase, the first sip from the cup of knowledge separates us from God, but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting for the one who seeks him. If so, then there is a way of thinking that leads to religious truths, and to seek only that way is rewarding. If it is not so, our world will put its hopes to religion in vain.")
Misattributed
Learning
Other
Radio Interview, February 19 2005 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_31_2.MP3I studied that first Karpov-Kasparov match for a year and a half before I cracked it, what they were doing, and discovered that it was all prearranged move-by-move. There's no doubt of it in my mind.Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorization and prearrangement. It’s a terrible game now. Very uncreative.
2000s
“The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.”
"I am the Champion" by Nick Ferrari in The Sun (19 July 1985).
Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete
“Nature is my manifestation of God.
I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work.”
Misattributed to Meryl Streep (and widely disseminated on the Internet as of August/September 2014), this quote is allegedly a translation of a text by the author José Micard Teixeira, the original of which begins (in Portuguese): "Já não tenho paciência para algumas coisas, não porque me tenha tornado arrogante..."
Misattributed
About the role of J. Pierpont Morgan, and the failure of Tesla's "World System" project
My Inventions (1919)
Context: He had the highest regard for my attainments and gave me every evidence of his complete faith in my ability to ultimately achieve what I had set out to do. I am unwilling to accord to some small−minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease. My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time, but the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.
My Inventions (1919)
Context: While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong.
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Repudiei sempre que me compreendessem. Ser compreendido é prostituir-se. Prefiro ser tomado a sério como o que não sou, ignorado humanamente, com decência e naturalidade.
Source: The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 128
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
"Mormon Lilies", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 4 of the 4 part series "Notes from Utah") dated July 1877, published 19 July 1877; reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 9
1870s
Variants:
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature, for in the final analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.
Source: Where is Science Going? (1932)
“Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,
are your own nature reflected in them.”
Rumi Daylight (1990)
In some of the manuscripts, the books begins with this epigram (Owen Gingerich, The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, American Institute of Physics, 1993, p. 55).
Almagest
The Satanic Bible (1969)
Source: Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), Ch. 34 : Materializing a Palace in the Himalayas
Equinoctial Regions of America (1814-1829)
The Last Messiah [Den sidste Messias] (1933)
in a letter to Frédéric Bazille: as cited by K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 22
1850 - 1870
“We are not to tell nature what she’s gotta be. … She's always got better imagination than we have.”
Sir Douglas Robb Lectures, University of Auckland (1979); lecture 1, "Photons: Corpuscles of Light" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQ2atfqk2c&t=48m01s
1790s, The Age of Reason, Part III (1807)
This has also appeared in the alternate form: "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Variant: What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
Source: Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science
Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 14, pg. 87-88
Context: Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.
Context: We may reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no necessity for men to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action. In justice as fairness men agree to avail themselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit. The two principles are a fair way of meeting the arbitrariness of fortune; and while no doubt imperfect in other ways, the institutions which satisfy these principles are just.
A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)
Source: My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla
Context: A state of human life vaguely defined by the term "Universal Peace," while a result of cumulative effort through centuries past, might come into existence quickly, not unlike a crystal suddenly forms in a solution which has been slowly prepared. But just as no effect can precede its cause, so this state can never be brought on by any pact between nations, however solemn. Experience is made before the law is formulated, both are related like cause and effect. So long as we are clearly conscious of the expectation, that peace is to result from such a parliamentary decision, so long have we a conclusive evidence that we are not fit for peace. Only then when we shall feel that such international meetings are mere formal procedures, unnecessary except in so far as they might serve to give definite expression to a common desire, will peace be assured.
To judge from current events we must be, as yet, very distant from that blissful goal. It is true that we are proceeding towards it rapidly. There are abundant signs of this progress everywhere. The race enmities and prejudices are decidedly waning.
Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle
“The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.”
Eliphas Levi
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume I, Chapter XIII
The Milwaukee Sentinel Princess Grace finds relaxation in her gardens Jan. 1, 1981
The Life of Edward Jenner M.D. Vol. 2 (1838) by John Baron, p. 447
“I have no need of proof. The laws of nature, unlike the laws of grammar, admit of no exception.”
An Outline of the System of the Elements
Where is science going? The Universe in the light of modern physics. (1932)
“Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We Socialists?” https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken, Nazi propaganda pamphlet (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932)
/ 1930s
Sultana's Dream (1905)
Official Trailer
Hawking (2013)
"Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency" (February 1892)
Context: Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antaeus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.”
The earliest published source found on google books that attributes this to Euclid is A Mathematical Journey by Stanley Gudder (1994), p. xv http://books.google.com/books?id=UiOxd2-lfGsC&q=%22mathematical+thoughts%22+euclid#search_anchor. However, many earlier works attribute it to Johannes Kepler, the earliest located being in the piece "The Mathematics of Elementary Chemistry" by Principal J. McIntosh of Fowler Union High School in California, which appeared in School Science and Mathematics, Volume VII ( 1907 http://books.google.com/books?id=kAEUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false), p. 383 http://books.google.com/books?id=kAEUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA383#v=onepage&q&f=false. Neither this nor any other source located gives a source in Kepler's writings, however, and in an earlier source, the 1888 Notes and Queries, Vol V., it is attributed on p. 165 http://books.google.com/books?id=0qYXAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA165#v=onepage&q&f=false to Plato. It could possibly be a paraphrase of either or both of the following to comments in Kepler's 1618 book Harmonices Mundi (The Harmony of the World)': "Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God" and "Since geometry is co-eternal with the divine mind before the birth of things, God himself served as his own model in creating the world".
Misattributed
“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.”
Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 162
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
As quoted in The Wright Style (1992) by Carla Lind, p. 3
Source: Letters to a Young Poet
“Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant;
the only harmless great thing.”
“… and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”
“Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”
Speech at Macworld Expo in Boston, as quoted in The Daily News (4 August 1994) http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bD8PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IoYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4837%2C5338590. A nearly identical quote can be found at the end of the second paragraph of his lecture Life in the Universe http://hawking.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65 (1996).
Source: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.”
Source: Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis
2 MEDIA AND CULTURE, Yeltsin's Coup And The Medias Alchemy, p. 140
Dirty truths (1996), first edition
“For nature forms our spirits to receive
Each bent that outward circumstance can give:
She kindles pleasure, bids resentment glow,
Or bows the soul to earth in hopeless woe.”
Format enim Natura prius nos intus ad omnem
Fortunarum habitum, juvat, aut impellit ad iram,
Aut ad humum moerore gravi deducit, et angit.
Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 108 (tr. Conington)
“Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain
That has been, and may be again.”
The Solitary Reaper.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“If the artist has outer and inner eyes for nature, nature rewards him by giving him inspiration.”
Source: 1916 -1920, Autobiography', 1918, p. 14
“In us there is the Light of Nature, and that Light is God.”
Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)
“Art is a demonstration of which nature is the proof.”
L'art est une démonstration dont la nature est la preuve.
François le Champi, Introduction (1848); Jane Minot Sedgwick (trans.) François the Waif {New York: H. M. Caldwell, 1894) p. 17
The Yoga of Nutrition, Editions Prosveta, 2012 ebook edition, pp. 24 https://books.google.it/books?id=jnoVCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT24-25.
?
Books, The Beggar, Volume IV: Die Before Dying (Hari-Nama Press, 2005)
Sur un nouveau genre de calcul, 1826.
On God Gives, Man Robs , 1927. http://archive.thedailystar.net/magazine/2005/07/05/reflections.htm
My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence
