Quotes about nature

A collection of quotes on the topic of nature, human, humanity, can.

Best quotes about nature

„If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.“

— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890

„In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.“

— John Muir Scottish-born American naturalist and author 1838 - 1914

"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

„Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.“

— Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968

Variant: Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.

„We don’t need natural disasters. We’re building our own.“

— Jiri Lev 1979

Source: The Australian Architects Offering Pro-Bono Design Services to Bushfire Survivors https://hivelife.com/architects-assist/.

„Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.“

— Emily Dickinson, book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Variant: Art is a house that tries to be haunted.
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

„In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.“

— Aristotle, book Parts of Animals

Book I, 645a.16
Parts of Animals
Original: (el) Ἐν πᾶσι γὰρ τοῖς φυσικοῖς ἔνεστί τι θαυμαστόν.

„Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.“

— Confucius Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher -551 - -479 BC

Source: The Book of Rites

„You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.“

— Paul McCartney English singer-songwriter and composer 1942

„Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.“

— Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803 - 1882

„Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.“

— Marilyn Monroe American actress, model, and singer 1926 - 1962

Variant: Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.

All quotes about nature

Total 10566 quotes nature, filter:

„Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.“

— Hubert Reeves Canadian astrophysicist and popularizer of science 1932

God

„Nature in fact the best and wisest is an architect and urban planner. (…) The history of establishing gardens and orchards throughout the centuries in Poland is worth knowing, taking into consideration changes in fashions and the foreign influences. Unfortunately, not many objects from those days manifesting the love of nature by man have remained till the present days.“

— Marek Żukow-Karczewski Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist 1961

Gardens and orchards in the old Poland, "Aura" 11, 1987-11, p.17-18. http://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/508860

Love, History, Fashion, Change

„If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy - stick to your Scout promise always - even after you have ceased to be a boy - and God help you do it.“

— Robert Baden-Powell lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement 1857 - 1941

Life, God, People, World

„The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.“

— Werner Heisenberg German theoretical physicist 1901 - 1976

“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

God, Science, Waiting

„For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.“

— Jacques-Yves Cousteau French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher 1910 - 1997

History, Fight, Beauty, Peaceful

„I think that truth is the highest value, although it has to be embedded in love. What I mean by that is that truth should serve the highest good imaginable. For me, that is what is best for each individual, in the manner that is simultaneously best for the family, and the state, and nature itself. But you can only want that good if you love Being.“

— Jordan Peterson Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology 1962

Other

Love, Truth, Family, Imagination

„The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.“

— Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926

Beauty, Peaceful

„Nature is my manifestation of God.
I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work.“

— Frank Lloyd Wright American architect (1867-1959) 1867 - 1959

God

„Constructive process is a process of development and learning is a process of reconstruction of nature.“

— Sukavich Rangsitpol Thai politician 1935

Learning

„A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.“

— Marie Curie French-Polish physicist and chemist 1867 - 1934

„All the loving acts that two human beings are capable of, the simple act of holding hands can often become the most intimate. Why is this so? Basically, because the nature of the hands and feet is such that the energy system finds expression in these two parts of the body in a very singular way. Two palms coming together have far more intimacy than the contact between any other parts of the body. You can try this with yourself. You don’t even need a partner. When you put your hands together, the two energy dimensions within you (right-left, masculine-feminine, solar-lunar, yin-yang, etc.) are linked in a certain way, and you begin to experience a sense of unity within yourself. This is the logic of the traditional Indian namaskar. It is a means of harmonizing the system. So, the simplest way to experience a state of union is to try this simple namaskar yoga. Put your hands together, and pay loving attention to any object you use or consume, or any form of life that you encounter. When you bring this sense of awareness into every simple act, your experience of life will never be the same again. There is even a possibility that if you put your hands together, you could unite the world!“

— Sadhguru, book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Love, Life, World, Way

„Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.“

— Anaïs Nin writer of novels, short stories, and erotica 1903 - 1977

Love, Death, Error, Betrayal

„Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.“

— Gary Snyder American poet 1930

Home, Beauty, Peaceful

„I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.“

— Ptolemy, book Almagest

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

Pleasure

„It's dangerous & humiliating. The whalers killed whales while green peace watched. Now, you don't walk by a child that is being abused, you don't walk by a kitten that is being kicked to death and do nothing. So I find it abhorrent to sit there and watch a whale being slaughtered and do nothing but "bear witness" as they call it. I think it was best illustrated a few years ago, the contradictions that we have, when a ranger in Zimbabwe shot and killed a poacher that was about to kill a black rhinoceros and uh human rights groups around the world said "how dare you? Take a human life to protect an animal". I think the rangers' answer to that really illustrated a hypocrisy. He said "Ya know, if I lived in, If I was a police officer in Herrari and a man ran out of Bark Place Bank with a bag of money and I shot him in the head in front of everybody and killed him, you'd pin a medal on me and call me a national hero. Why is that bag of paper more valued than the future heritage of this nation?" This is our values. WE fight, WE kill, WE risk our lives for things we believe in… Imagine going into Mecca, walk up to the black stone and spit on it. See how far you get. You’re not going to get very far. You’re going to be torn to pieces. Walk into Jerusalem, walk up to that wailing wall with a pick axe, start whacking away. See how far you’re going to get, somebody is going to put a bullet in your back. And everybody will say you deserved it. Walk into the Vatican with a hammer, start smashing a few statues. See how far you’re going to get. Not very far. But each and every day, ya know, people go into the most beautiful, most profoundly sacred cathedrals of this planet, the rainforests of the Amazonia, the redwood forests of California, the rainforests of Indonesia, and totally desecrate & destroy these cathedrals with bulldozers, chainsaws and how do we respond to that? Oh, we write a few letters and protest; we dress up in animal costumes with picket signs and jump up and down; but if the rainforests of Amazonia and redwoods of California, were as, or had as much value to us as a chunk of old meteorite in Mecca, a decrepit old wall in Jerusalem or a piece of old marble in the Vatican, we would literally rip those pieces limb from limb for the act of blasphemy that we’re committing but we won’t do that because nature is an abstraction, wilderness is an abstraction. It has no value in our anthropocentric world where the only thing we value is that which is created by humans.“

— Paul Watson Canadian environmental activist 1950

Life, Death, Money, People

„Montserrat Caballé is sensational. She has that same kind of emotion as Aretha Franklin. The way she delivers a song is so very natural. It's a very different gift.“

— Freddie Mercury British singer, songwriter and record producer 1946 - 1991

"I am the Champion" by Nick Ferrari in The Sun (19 July 1985).

Way

„Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things.“

— Alexander von Humboldt Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer 1769 - 1859

Equinoctial Regions of America (1814-1829)

Imagination, Lovers

„In nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life.“

— Vandana Shiva Indian philosopher 1952

Source: Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace

Life, Money

„The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.“

— David Attenborough British broadcaster and naturalist 1926

Truth, World, Food, Water

„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.“

— John Rawls, book A Theory of Justice

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.

Way, Personality

„We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves.“

— Andy Goldsworthy British sculptor and photographer 1956

Forgetting

„A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God's power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God's wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.“

— Jonathan Edwards Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian 1703 - 1758

Wisdom, God, Dependency

„Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs.“

— Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor 1856 - 1943

Source: My Inventions

World

„Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.“

— P.T. Barnum American showman and businessman 1810 - 1891

„Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.“

— John Dewey American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer 1859 - 1952

Thinking, Learning

„The exalted moment of love is always full of promise: it is not closed in on itself, but open; we see its natural fruitfulness revealed in the child, even if its spiritual fruitfulness remains hidden.“

— Hans Urs Von Balthasar Swedish Catholic theologian 1905 - 1988

Love Alone Is Credible (1963)

Love

„I have no need of proof. The laws of nature, unlike the laws of grammar, admit of no exception.“

— Dmitri Mendeleev Russian chemist and inventor 1834 - 1907

An Outline of the System of the Elements

Law

„Few mortals know that the kingdom of God includes the kingdom of mundane fulfillments. … The divine realm extends to the earthly; but the later, illusory in nature, does not contain the essence of Reality.“

— Mahavatar Babaji Hindu Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), Ch. 34 : Materializing a Palace in the Himalayas

God, Reality

„We are against the political bourgeoisie, and for genuine nationalism! We are against Marxism, but for true socialism! We are for the first German national state of a socialist nature! We are for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party!“

— Joseph Goebbels Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897 - 1945

“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

„I'm very happy, very delighted.... for I am surrounded here by all that I love. I spent my time out of doors.... and naturally I'm working all the time, and I think this year I'm going to do some serious things. And then in the evening, dear fellow, I come home to my little cottage to find a good fire and a dear little family... Dear friend, it's a delight to watch this person [his first son Jean, born in 1867] grow, and I am glad to have him to be sure…“

— Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926

in a letter to Frédéric Bazille: as cited by K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 22
1850 - 1870

Love, Family, Home, Thinking

„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.“

— Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor 1856 - 1943

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.

Men, World, Disease, Law

„Inside the united and indivisible universal Wholeness, every thought and action we make concerning the part, creates the reaction of the whole towards us. In short, whatever we are doing and in whichever way we are doing it, has a multiple effect on us, from every “corner” of the universal unity. The meaning of universal, indivisible unity creates a new social and ecological awareness, since the social and the nature are structural parts of the whole and every action we take against it, results in a reaction of the whole cosmic creation against us.“

— Alexis Karpouzos 1967

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

Universe, Way, Making love, Parting

„Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.“

— Frank Lloyd Wright American architect (1867-1959) 1867 - 1959

As quoted in The Wright Style (1992) by Carla Lind, p. 3

Love, Study, Beauty, Peaceful

„We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.“

— Werner Heisenberg German theoretical physicist 1901 - 1976

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

Question

„What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife… Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment…“

— Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor 1856 - 1943

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.

World, Peace, Communication, Understanding

„God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.“

— Marcus Garvey Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur 1887 - 1940

God, Law

„… and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?“

— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890

Art

„Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.“

— Carl von Clausewitz, book On War

On War (1832), Book 1

„My mother named me after a miracle of nature: Waris means desert flower. The desert flower blooms in a barren environment where few living things can survive.“

— Waris Dirie, book Desert Flower

Source: Desert Flower

Flowers

„There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.“

— Jane Austen, book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Love, People, love, Friendship

„Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems to by keeping it's dreams; it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.“

— Tupac Shakur, book The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Law, Dreams, Learning, Beauty

„It is no less ancient than a pestilent error wherewith many men (but they chiefly who abound in power and riches) persuade themselves, or (as I think more truly) go about to persuade, that right and wrong are distinguished not according to their own nature but by a certain vain opinion and custom of men.“

— Hugo Grotius philosopher 1583 - 1645

Source: The Free Sea

Men, Error, Thinking

„Why do we think love is a magician? Because the whole power of magic consists in love. The work of magic is the attraction of one thing by another because of a certain affinity of nature.“

— Marsilio Ficino Italian philosopher 1433 - 1499

Love, Thinking

„I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect.“

— Fernando Pessoa, book The Book of Disquiet

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 terms of experience, we want to make this (referring to the self) very pleasant. We want this to be blissful, ecstatic. But, as I said before, even being ecstatic is not goal by itself. If you are blissful by your own nature, then the important thing is that you are no more the issue. There are other issues in this existence; we can look at those. But if you are an issue, what other issue will you take in your hands? You will not touch anything. When I am enough trouble myself, why do I want to take on this one or that one? When I am no more an issue, now I am willing to dig into the whole existence and see what it is all about.“

— Sadhguru Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian 1957

Source: Of Mystics & Mistakes

„My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.“

— Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

Universe

„Humankind does not submit passively to the power of nature. It takes control over this power. This process is not an internal or subjective one. It takes place objectively in practice, once women cease to be viewed as mere sexual beings, once we look beyond their biological functions and become conscious of their weight as an active social force. What's more, woman's consciousness of herself is not only a product of her sexuality. It reflects her position as determined by the economic structure of society, which in turn expresses the level reached by humankind in technological development and the relations between classes.

The importance of dialectical materialism lies in going beyond the inherent limits of biology, rejecting simplistic theories about our being slaves to the nature of our species, and, instead, placing facts in their social and economic context.“

— Thomas Sankara President of Upper Volta 1949 - 1987

Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle

Women

„Nature does nothing uselessly.“

— Aristotle, book Politics

Book I, 1253a.8
Source: Politics

„Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.“

— Max Planck German theoretical physicist 1858 - 1947

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)

Science, Parting

„Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.“

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Hungarian American psychologist 1934

Source: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Effort, Personality

„The kabalists say that a man is not dead when his body is entombed. Death is never sudden; for, according to Hermes, nothing goes in nature by violent transitions. Everything is gradual, and as it required a long and gradual development to produce the living human being, so time is required to completely withdraw vitality from the carcass. "Death can no more be an absolute end, than birth a real beginning. Birth proves the preexistence of the being, as death proves immortality," says the same French kabalist“

— Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, book Isis Unveiled

Eliphas Levi
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume I, Chapter XIII

Death, Birth, Time, Dead

„I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.“

— Meryl Streep American actress 1949

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

Love, Life, Hate, Friendship

„If the artist has outer and inner eyes for nature, nature rewards him by giving him inspiration.“

— Wassily Kandinsky Russian painter 1866 - 1944

Source: 1916 -1920, Autobiography', 1918, p. 14

„In us there is the Light of Nature, and that Light is God.“

— Paracelsus Swiss physician and alchemist 1493 - 1541

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

God, Light

„The highest powers in our nature are our sense of moral excellence, the principple of reason and reflection, benevolence to our creatures and our love of the Divine Being.“

— Edward Jenner English physician, scientist and pioneer of vaccination 1749 - 1823

The Life of Edward Jenner M.D. Vol. 2 (1838) by John Baron, p. 447

Love, Sense

„What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened…. Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out!… The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town…. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes — his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest!… When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good — you will get that…. Tell your son Tom you KNOW he'll be glad to fill that woodbox — then watch him start, alert and interested!“

— Eleanor H. Porter American novelist 1868 - 1920

Works, Pollyanna (1913)

Women, Men, People, Beauty

„A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person… but falls instead into the same moral category as an animal – of either the harmless sort (to be domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a “free good”) or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest). On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but…who knowingly act wrongly… [B]esides having to be tamed or even physically defeated [they] must also be punished… to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future.“

— Hans-Hermann Hoppe, book Democracy: The God That Failed

Source: Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), P.173

Understanding, Future, Animals, Personality

„The first and most important quality of all scientific ways of thinking must be the clear distinction between the outer object of observation and the subjective nature of the observer.“

— Max Planck German theoretical physicist 1858 - 1947

Where is science going? The Universe in the light of modern physics. (1932)

Way, Thinking

„Satanism encourages its followers to indulge in their natural desires. Only by doing so can you be a completely satisfied person with no frustrations which can be harmful to yourself and others around you. Therefore, the most simplified description of the Satanic belief is: indulgence instead of abstinence.“

— Anton LaVey, book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Personality

„We are all different — but we share the same human spirit. Perhaps it's human nature that we adapt — and survive.“

— Stephen Hawking British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942 - 2018

Official Trailer
Hawking (2013)

„Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random.“

— Richard Dawkins, book The Blind Watchmaker

Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 2 “Good Design” (p. 41)

„The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.“

— Euclid Greek mathematician, inventor of axiomatic geometry -323 - -285 BC

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

God, Law, Mathematics

„All humans on earth are one. We descend from the same family of common ancestors. We are, in a quite literal sense, siblings, and like siblings we depend on each other's love and care and responsibility. We are interdependent not just in our families and communities, but in nations, and increasingly on a global scale - just as we are also interdependent with nature and the earth.“

— Alexis Karpouzos 1967

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

Family, Dependency, Communication, Siblings

„The amount of money you have in you is the determinant factor of the nature of business you can do, not desires and emotions. Desires and Emotions will Cost you even the little capital you hold.“

— Hamis Kiggundu Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author 1984

Quoted from his first book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ on Amazon, P.36 (July 2018)

Money, Business

„Death is part of nature, but even nature does not seem to be free from the laws of decay.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

Law, Death, Parting

„There's no need to lower or raise yourself above the things that you are not. Live according to your ability. Be true to yourself and your own nature.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

„We are not utopians, we do not indulge in "dreams" of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination; these anarchist dreams… serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until human nature has changed. No, we want the with human nature as it is now, with human nature that cannot dispense with subordination, control and "managers."… The united workers themselves… will hire their own technicians, managers and bookkeepers, and pay them all, as, indeed, every state official, ordinary workmen's wages.“

— Vladimir Lenin, book The State and Revolution

§ 3.4, Essential Works of Lenin (1966), pp. 307-308
Source: The State and Revolution (1917)

Dreams, Change

„Nature is cruel but we don't have to be“

— Temple Grandin USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist 1947

Variant: Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be.
Source: The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's

„All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.“

— Marie Curie French-Polish physicist and chemist 1867 - 1934

Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 162

Life, Beauty, Peaceful

„We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.“

— William Shakespeare, Henry VIII

Source: Henry VIII

Men, Angels

„Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame… at your past, which naturally has a share with everything that now meets you.“

— Rainer Maria Rilke, book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Past, Drawing

„I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love.“

— Jimmy Carter American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981) 1924

Page 28
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)
Source: Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis

Love, Life, God, Truth

„Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant;
the only harmless great thing.“

— John Donne English poet 1572 - 1631

„Man lives only to learn. And if he learns it is because it is the nature of his lot, for good or bad.“

— Carlos Castaneda Peruvian-American author 1925 - 1998

Learning

„As in everything, nature is the best instructor.“

— Adolf Hitler Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party 1889 - 1945

„Do not be concerned with the faults of other persons. Do not see others' faults with a hateful mind. There is an old saying that if you stop seeing others' faults, then naturally seniors and venerated and juniors are revered. Do not imitate others' faults; just cultivate virtue. Buddha prohibited unwholesome actions, but did not tell us to hate those who practice unwholesome actions.“

— Dogen Japanese Zen buddhist teacher 1200 - 1253

Hate, Personality

„Wild roses are fairest, and nature a better gardener than art.“

— Louisa May Alcott, A Long Fatal Love Chase

Source: A Long Fatal Love Chase

Art

„O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?“

— William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

Source: Henry IV, Part 2

Sense, Sleep, Forgetting

„Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.“

— Aristotle Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy -384 - -321 BC

Men

„God is simple. Everything else is complex. Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature.“

— Paramahansa Yogananda Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship 1893 - 1952

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi:

God, World

„Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete proving nature's laws wrong it learned 2 walk
without having feet“

— Tupac Shakur, book The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Law, Learning

„Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque.“

— U.G. Krishnamurti, book Mind is a Myth

Source: Mind is a Myth (1987), Ch. 4: There Is Nothing To Understand
Context: If you are freed from the goal of the "perfect","godly", "truly religious" then that which is natural in man begins to express itself. Your religious and secular culture has placed before you the ideal man or woman, the perfect human being, and then tries to fit everybody into that mold. It is impossible. Nature does not exist at all. Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque.

Business

„We live in our own souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest us we know but the boundaries that march with ours.“

— Edith Wharton American novelist, short story writer, designer 1862 - 1937

Soul

„Arguments for preservation based on the beauty of wilderness are sometimes treated as if they were of little weight because they are "merely aesthetic". That is a mistake. We go to great lengths to preserve the artistic treasures of earlier human civilisations. It is difficult to imagine any economic gain that we would be prepared to accept as adequate compensation for, for instance, the destruction of the paintings in the Louvre. How should we compare the aesthetic value of wilderness with that of the paintings in the Louvre? Here, perhaps, judgment does become inescapably subjective; so I shall report my own experiences. I have looked at the paintings in the Louvre, and in many of the other great galleries of Europe and the United States. I think I have a reasonable sense of appreciation of the fine arts; yet I have not had, in any museum, experiences that have filled my aesthetic senses in the way that they are filled when I walk in a natural setting and pause to survey the view from a rocky peak overlooking a forested valley, or by a stream tumbling over moss-covered boulders set amongst tall tree-ferns, growing in the shade of the forest canopy, I do not think I am alone in this; for many people, wilderness is the source of the greatest feelings of aesthetic appreciation, rising to an almost mystical intensity.“

— Peter Singer, book Practical Ethics

Source: Practical Ethics

People, Beauty, Art, Way

„Your true passion should feel like breathing; it’s that natural.“

— Oprah Winfrey American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist 1954

Feeling, Passion

„I think computer viruses should count as life … I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.“

— Stephen Hawking British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942 - 2018

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).

Life, Thinking

„The secret to modeling is not being perfect. What one needs is a face that people can identify in a second. You have to be given what’s needed by nature, and what’s needed is to bring something new.“

— Karl Lagerfeld German fashion designer 1933 - 2019

People, Secret, Perfection

„Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create… Neo-Darwinists say that new species emerge when mutations occur and modify an organism. I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change [which] led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.“

— Lynn Margulis American evolutionary biologist 1938 - 2011

Change

„Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.“

— William Wordsworth, book Lyrical Ballads

The Tables Turned, st. 4 (1798).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Light, Teachers

„It is part of the nature of every definitive love that sooner or later it can reach the beloved only in infinity.“

— Rainer Maria Rilke Austrian poet and writer 1875 - 1926

Love, Parting

„Animals shouldn’t be hunted and nature shouldn’t be disturbed, even destroyed, to benefit the whims of mankind“

— Charles Manson American criminal and musician 1934 - 2017

Animals

„Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.“

— Ramana Maharshi Indian religious leader 1879 - 1950

Happiness

„Logic is the science not of external forms of thought, but of the laws of development "of all material, natural and spiritual things", i. e., of the development of the entire concrete content of the world and of its cognition, i. e., the sum-total, the conclusion of the History of knowledge of the world.“

— Vladimir Lenin Russian politician, led the October Revolution 1870 - 1924

World, Law, History, Knowledge

„Nature is part our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery man ceases to be man. When the Pleiades and the wind in the grass are no longer a part of the human spirit, a part of very flesh and bone, man becomes, as it were, a kind of cosmic outlaw, having neither the completeness and integrity of the animal nor the birthright of a true humanity.“

— Henry Beston American writer 1888 - 1968

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Grass, Animals, Parting

„…racial hatred is not a natural phenomenon innate in man. It is the product of ideologies. But even if such a thing as a natural and inborn hatred between various races existed, it would not render social cooperation futile and would not invalidate Ricardo's theory of association. Social cooperation has nothing to do with personal love or with a general commandment to love one another. People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.“

— Ludwig von Mises, book Human Action

Part 2, VIII.84
Human Action (1949)

Love, Men, People, Peace

„Russia became a juicy chunk of the Third World, with immense reserves of cheap labor, a vast treasure of natural resources, and industrial assets to be sold off at giveaway prices.“

— Michael Parenti American academic 1933

2 MEDIA AND CULTURE, Yeltsin's Coup And The Medias Alchemy, p. 140
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

World

„I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue. You'll find that is true, Rose, when you know the world better.“

— Louisa May Alcott, A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

People, World, Fear, Feeling

„A sample limited to one profession would have yielded results of doubtful generality. To develop findings independent of the peculiar circumstances of the engineer, we needed to study a comparable group. Accountants were chosen because their jobs, like those of engineers,· are rich in technique. This richness makes it likely that the accountant, like the engineer, would have much to tell us. However, the groups are vastly different in the nature of their training, their present degree of professionalization, the kind of work they do, and, presumably, the kind of people attracted into them. Last, by covering accountants and engineers, we examined the job attitudes of two of the most important staff groups in modern industry“

— Frederick Herzberg American psychologist 1923 - 2000

Source: The motivation to work, 1959, p. 32

People, Study, Training

„The enemy is like a woman, weak in face of opposition, but correspondingly strong when not opposed. In a quarrel with a man, it is natural for a woman to lose heart and run away when he faces up to her; on the other hand, if the man begins to be afraid and to give ground, her rage, vindictiveness and fury overflow and know no limit.“

— Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Saint, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) 1491 - 1556

No. 325.
Spiritual Exercises (1548)

Strong, Rage, Heart

„The agreement of this law with nature will be better seen by the repetition of experiments than by a long explanation.“

— Hans Christian Ørsted Danish physicist and chemist 1777 - 1851

Relating his discovery of the magnetic effect of an electric current, in "Experiments on the Effect of a Current of Electricity on the Magnetic Needle", Annals of Philosophy 1820, vol. 16, pp. 273-277.

Law