Quotes about nature
page 15

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo

“Contrary to the vulgar illusion, it is thanks to the metal, and by virtue of it, that the pilot rediscovers nature. As I have already said, the machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Ch III : The Tool
Terre des Hommes (1939)
Context: !-- There was a time when a flyer sat at the centre of a complicated works. Flight set us factory problems. The indicators that oscillated on the instrument panel warned us of a thousand dangers. But in the machine of today we forget that motors are whirring: the motor, finally, has come to fulfil its function, which is to whirr as a heart beats—and we give no thought to the beating of our heart. Thus, --> Precisely because it is perfect the machine dissembles its own existence instead of forcing itself upon our notice.
And thus, also, the realities of nature resume their pride of place. It is not with metal that the pilot is in contact. Contrary to the vulgar illusion, it is thanks to the metal, and by virtue of it, that the pilot rediscovers nature. As I have already said, the machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
Numerous, nevertheless, are the moralists who have attacked the machine as the source of all the ills we bear, who, creating a fictitious dichotomy, have denounced the mechanical civilization as the enemy of the spiritual civilization.
If what they think were really so, then indeed we should have to despair of man, for it would be futile to struggle against this new advancing chaos. The machine is certainly as irresistible in its advance as those virgin forests that encroach upon equatorial domains.

Leo Tolstoy photo
Jacque Fresco photo
Pierre Bonnard photo
Thomas Paine photo
Thomas Paine photo
Maximilien Robespierre photo
Barack Obama photo
Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo
Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo
Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo
Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo

“If we pass from physical nature to the moral world, here we still find ourselves subject to the same deceptions of appearance, to the same influence of spontaneity and habit.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: What is Property? (1840), Chapter One

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“I really agree that Yog-Sothoth is a basically immature conception, & unfitted for really serious literature. The fact is, I have never approached serious literature yet. But I consider the use of actual folk-myths as even more childish than the use of new artificial myths, since in the former one is forced to retain many blatant peurilities & contradictions of experienced which could be subtilised or smoothed over if the supernaturalism were modelled to order for the given case. The only permanently artistic use of Yog-Sothothery, I think, is in symbolic or associative phantasy of the frankly poetic type; in which fixed dream-patterns of the natural organism are given an embodiment & crystallisation... But there is another phase of cosmic phantasy (which may or may not include frank Yog-Sothothery) whose foundations appear to me as better grounded than those of ordinary oneiroscopy; personal limitations regarding the sense of outsideness. I refer to the aesthetic crystallisation of that burning & inextinguishable feeling of mixed wonder & oppression which the sensitive imagination experiences upon scaling itself & its restrictions against the vast & provocative abyss of the unknown. This has always been the chief emotion in my psychology; & whilst it obviously figures less in the psychology of the majority, it is clearly a well-defined & permanent factor from which very few sensitive persons are wholly free.... Reason as we may, we cannot destroy a normal perception of the highly limited & fragmentary nature of our visible world of perception & experience as scaled against the outside abyss of unthinkable galaxies & unplumbed dimensions—an abyss wherein our solar system is the merest dot... The time has come when the normal revolt against time, space, & matter must assume a form not overtly incompatible with what is known of reality—when it must be gratified by images forming supplements rather than contradictions of the visible & measurable universe. And what, if not a form of non-supernatural cosmic art, is to pacify this sense of revolt—as well as gratify the cognate sense of curiosity?”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 293
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Marcel Proust photo

“By art alone we are able to get outside ourselves, to know what another sees of this universe which for him is not ours, the landscapes of which would remain as unknown to us as those of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world, our own, we see it multiplied and as many original artists as there are, so many worlds are at our disposal, differing more widely from each other than those which roll round the infinite and which, whether their name be Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us their unique rays many centuries after the hearth from which they emanate is extinguished.This labour of the artist to discover a means of apprehending beneath matter and experience, beneath words, something different from their appearance, is of an exactly contrary nature to the operation in which pride, passion, intelligence and habit are constantly engaged within us when we spend our lives without self-communion, accumulating as though to hide our true impressions, the terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life.”

Par l’art seulement, nous pouvons sortir de nous, savoir ce que voit un autre de cet univers qui n’est pas le même que le nôtre et dont les paysages nous seraient restés aussi inconnus que ceux qu’il peut y avoir dans la lune. Grâce à l’art, au lieu de voir un seul monde, le nôtre, nous le voyons se multiplier, et autant qu’il y a d’artistes originaux, autant nous avons de mondes à notre disposition, plus différents les uns des autres que ceux qui roulent dans l’infini et qui, bien des siècles après qu’est éteint le foyer dont il émanait, qu’il s’appelât Rembrandt ou Vermeer, nous envoient encore leur rayon spécial.<p>Ce travail de l’artiste, de chercher à apercevoir sous la matière, sous de l’expérience, sous des mots, quelque chose de différent, c’est exactement le travail inverse de celui que, à chaque minute, quand nous vivons détourné de nous-même, l’amour-propre, la passion, l’intelligence, et l’habitude aussi accomplissent en nous, quand elles amassent au-dessus de nos impressions vraies, pour nous les cacher entièrement, les nomenclatures, les buts pratiques que nous appelons faussement la vie.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. VII: The Past Recaptured (1927), Ch. III: "An Afternoon Party at the House of the Princesse de Guermantes"

Barack Obama photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Blaise Pascal photo

“What would you say of that man who was made king by the error of the people, if he had so far forgotten his natural condition as to imagine that this kingdom was due to him, that he deserved it, and that it belonged to him of right? You would marvel at his stupidity and folly.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

But is there less in the people of rank who live in so strange a forgetfulness of their natural condition?
Discourses on the Condition of the Great

Chris Martin photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“If the state is regulated by the above process, naturally there will be God consciousness everywhere.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Canto 1, Chapter 17, verse 36. (1999)

Thomas Paine photo
Thomas Paine photo

“It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her, A Declaration Of Independence, made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prostitution. Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided the sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object: and there is no instance in the world, where a people so extended, and wedded to former habits of thinking, and under such a variety of circumstances, were so instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of independence; and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through such a succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it with success. But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings: and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. XIII
1770s, The American Crisis (1776&ndash;1783)

Liliana Segre photo

“Every minute of our life must be lived to the full – whether enjoyed or suffered. We must study, see the good around us, and fight the bad, and not waste time writing to a 90-year-old woman to tell her you wish she’d die. Besides, nature will take care of that.”

Liliana Segre (1930) Italian Holocaust survivor and senator for life

During a seminar at Milan’s IULM University, speaking of the haters; as quoted in "Escort for Liliana Segre following insults and threats" https://www.corriere.it/english/19_novembre_07/escort-for-liliana-segre-following-insults-and-threats-2c3dea64-015f-11ea-bfaf-9602a8f3f6c1.shtml, Corriere.it (7 November 2019).

John Chrysostom photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Max Planck photo
Erykah Badu photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“Aluminium, however, will not stop at downing copper. Before many years have passed it will be engaged in a fierce struggle with iron, and in the latter it will find an adversary not easy to conquer. The issue of the contest will largely depend on whether iron shall be indispensable in electric machinery. This the future alone can decide. The magnetism as exhibited in iron is an isolated phenomenon in nature. What it is that makes this metal behave so radically different from all other materials in this respect has not yet been ascertained, though many theories have been suggested. As regards magnetism, the molecules of the various bodies behave like hollow beams partly filled with a heavy fluid and balanced in the middle in the manner of a see-saw. Evidently some disturbing influence exists in nature which causes each molecule, like such a beam, to tilt either one or the other way. If the molecules are tilted one way, the body is magnetic; if they are tilted the other way, the body is non-magnetic; but both positions are stable, as they would be in the case of the hollow beam, owing to the rush of the fluid to the lower end. Now, the wonderful thing is that the molecules of all known bodies went one way, while those of iron went the other way. This metal, it would seem, has an origin entirely different from that of the rest of the globe. It is highly improbable that we shall discover some other and cheaper material which will equal or surpass iron in magnetic qualities.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Mark Twain photo
Ronald Fisher photo

“He has made contributions to many areas of science; among them are agronomy, anthropology, astronomy, bacteriology, botany, economics, forestry, meteorology, psychology, public health, and-above all-genetics, in which he is recognized as one of the leaders. Out of this varied scientific research and his skill in mathematics, he has evolved systematic principles for the interpretation of empirical data; and he has founded a science of experimental design. On the foundations he has laid down, there has been erected a structure of statistical techniques that are used whenever people attempt to learn about nature from experiment and observation.”

Ronald Fisher (1890–1962) English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist

W. Allen Wallis (1952) at the University of Chicago while honoring Fisher with the Honorary degree of Doctor of Science; cited in: George E. P. Box (1976) " Science and Statistics http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Ian.Jermyn/philosophy/writings/Boxonmaths.pdf" Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 71, No. 356. (Dec., 1976), pp. 791-799.

Karl Marx photo
Carl Schmitt photo
Adam Weishaupt photo
Wilhelm Reich photo
Joseph Kosuth photo

“Fundamental to this idea of art (conceptual art) is the understanding of the linguistic nature of all art propositions, be they past or present, and regardless of the elements used in their construction.”

Joseph Kosuth (1945) American conceptual artist

note: Without this understanding a 'conceptual' form of presentation is little more than a manufactured stylehood, and such art we have with increasing abundance.
'Joseph Kosuth: Introductory note by the American editor', in Art-Language Vol.1 Nr.2, Art & Language Press, Chipping Norton (February 1970), p.3.

Masti Venkatesha Iyengar photo

“One who has a gentle and profound insight into what lasts in India, and what elements inherent in human nature threaten it…the best in traditions of the East and the West have gone into the making of his liberal humanist philosophy.”

Masti Venkatesha Iyengar (1891–1986) Indian writer

Anatha Murthy, in his book review, describes Masti, the Sahitya Akademi Awardee as here [Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, Masti, http://books.google.co.in/books/about/Masti.html?id=e6VqgWouUmUC&redir_esc=y, 2004, Katha, 978-81-87649-50-2, Review]
About Masti

Jeremy Bentham photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
C.G. Jung photo
C.G. Jung photo
Julio Iglesias photo

“Everything was a bigger struggle for me, everything required a bigger effort, so I understood that the sole basis for my future was discipline, and I maintain that discipline today, at 75...I mean, going out onstage to sing is an act of discipline and of absolute passion. Passion is natural, but discipline is willpower.”

Julio Iglesias (1943) Spanish recording artist; singer-songwriter

On how he credits discipline as the secret of his success in "Julio Iglesias reflects on a life that 'has been a miracle'" https://apnews.com/7ef030336a5b4a1a949723346d64ec51 in AP News (2019 Jun 14)

“Die to the world, repudiating the madness that is in it. Live to God, and by apprehending Him lay aside your old nature. We were not created to die, but we die by our own fault. Our free-will has destroyed us; we who were free have become slaves; we have been sold through sin. Nothing evil has been created by God; we ourselves have manifested wickedness; but we, who have manifested it, are able again to reject it.”

Tatian (120–180) Syrian writer

Original: (la) Μundo morere, ejus insaniam rejiciens: vive Deo, per ipsius cognitionem, veterem generationem repudians. Νοn facti sumus ut moreremur, sed nostra culpa morimur. Perdidit nos libera voluntas: servi facti sumus, qui liberi eramus: per peccatum venditi sumus. Νihil mali factum est a Deo: nos ipsi improbitatem produximus. Εam vero qui produxerunt, denuo repudiare possunt.
Source: Address to the Greeks, Chapter XI, as translated by J. E. Ryland

George Washington photo
Voltaire photo

“Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it. Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty. My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

"Canon Law: Ecclesiastical Ministry" (1771)
Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)
Original: (fr) La vertu suppose la liberté, comme le transport d’un fardeau suppose la force active. Dans la contrainte point de vertu, et sans vertu point de religion. Rends-moi esclave, je n’en serai pas meilleur. Le souverain même n’a aucun droit d’employer la contrainte pour amener les hommes à la religion, qui suppose essentiellement choix et liberté. Ma pensée n’est pas plus soumise à l’autorité que la maladie ou la santé.

Voltaire photo

“William Penn, when only fifteen years of age, chanced to meet a Quaker in Oxford, where he was then following his studies. This Quaker made a proselyte of him; and our young man, being naturally sprightly and eloquent, having a very winning aspect and engaging carriage, soon gained over some of his companions and intimates, and in a short time formed a society of young Quakers, who met at his house; so that at the age of sixteen he found himself at the head of a sect. Having left college, at his return home to the vice-admiral, his father, instead of kneeling to ask his blessing, as is the custom with the English, he went up to him with his hat on, and accosted him thus: "Friend, I am glad to see thee in good health."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The viceadmiral thought his son crazy; but soon discovered he was a Quaker. He then employed every method that prudence could suggest to engage him to behave and act like other people. The youth answered his father only with repeated exhortations to turn Quaker also. After much altercation, his father confined himself to this single request, that he would wait on the king and the duke of York with his hat under his arm, and that he would not "thee" and "thou" them. William answered that his conscience would not permit him to do these things. This exasperated his father to such a degree that he turned him out of doors. Young Penn gave God thanks that he permitted him to suffer so early in His cause, and went into the city, where he held forth, and made a great number of converts; and being young, handsome, and of a graceful figure, both court and city ladies flocked very devoutly to hear him. The patriarch Fox, hearing of his great reputation, came to London — notwithstanding the length of the journey — purposely to see and converse with him. They both agreed to go upon missions into foreign countries; and accordingly they embarked for Holland, after having left a sufficient number of laborers to take care of the London vineyard.
The History of the Quakers (1762)

“The 2019 novel coronavirus is a punishment by nature to humans' unsanitary lifestyle. I promise with my life that the virus has nothing to do with the (Wuhan Institute of Virology) lab.”

Shi Zhengli (1964) Chinese researcher

Shi Zhengli (2020) cited in " China denies lab link to coronavirus as questions over origin mount https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/5/china-denies-lab-link-to-coronavirus-as-questions-/" on The Washington Times, 5 February 2020.

Voltaire photo
George Washington photo

“Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love — I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case — and further I confess, that this Lady is known to you. — Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I coud wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. — but experience alas! sadly reminds me how Impossible this is. — and evinces an Opinion which I have long entertaind, that there is a Destiny, which has the Sovereign controul of our Actions — not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.
You have drawn me my dear Madam, or rather have I drawn myself, into an honest confession of a Simple Fact — misconstrue not my meaning — ’tis obvious — doubt it not, nor expose it, — the World has no business to know the object of my Love, declard in this manner to — you when I want to conceal it — One thing, above all things in this World I wish to know, and only one person of your Acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

but adieu to this, till happier times, if I ever shall see them.

Letter to https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-06-02-0013#GEWN-02-06-02-0013-fn-0002 Mrs. George William Fairfax (Sally Cary Fairfax) (12 September 1758)
1750s

Pope Francis photo

“Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18 months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods? I don’t know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses. Today I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

On the coronavirus and environmental crises. Cited in Pope salutes 'saints next door' in fight against coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/pope-salutes-saints-next-door-fight-against-coronavirus-hyprocrisy in the Guardian. (8 April 2020)
2010s, 2020

Joseph Goebbels photo

“Russia ... our natural ally against the fiendish temptation and corruption from the West.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Rußland ... der uns von Natur gegebene Bundesgenosse gegen die teuflische Versuchung und Korruption des Westens ist. Source: National Socialist Letters (Nationalsozialistische Briefe), “National Socialism or Bolshevism”, (November 15, 1925), quoted in: Ralph Georg Reuth, Goebbels, Piper, 2nd ed., Munich, 1991, p. 96. ISBN 3-492-03183-8.
1920s

Socrates photo

“And nature has condemned them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Diogenes Laertius

Teal Swan photo
Wilhelm Von Humboldt photo

“Whatever does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but still remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 3

Karl Marx photo
Karl Marx photo
C.G. Jung photo
Marquis de Sade photo
Marquis de Sade photo
Eliphas Levi photo

“Magic is the traditional science of the secrets of Nature which has been transmitted to us from the Magi.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Miscellaneous Quotes On the Subjects of Magic and Magicians
Source: Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magi Part I: The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic By Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant), Translated by A. E. Waite, England, Rider & Company, England, 1896, p.3

Mikhail Bakunin photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Blaise Pascal photo

“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
Maria Montessori photo

“Nature's laws deny inter-species compassion and declare it to be racial suicide.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Revolution by Number

Mooji photo

“Truth is what we are. It is our essential nature and Being. It is the pure Self, the limitless one, the ultimate reality – it is awareness itself.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

Claude Monet photo

“It seems to me, when I see nature, that I see it ready made, completely written — but then, try to do it! All this proves that one must think of nothing but them [impressions]; it is by dint of observation and reflection that one makes discoveries.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

2 quotes in Monet's letter to Frédéric Bazille from Honfleur, July 15, 1864; as cited in Mary M. Gedo (2013) Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art. p. 114-15 / p. 60
1860s

Abraham Lincoln photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Emmeline Pankhurst photo
Mikhail Bakunin photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Origen photo
Abby Martin photo
Quintilian photo

“Nature herself, indeed, seems to have given music to us as a benefit, to enable us to endure labors with greater facility, for musical sounds cheer even the rower; and it is not only in those works in which the efforts of many, while some pleasing voice leads them, conspire together that music is of avail, but the toil even of people at work by themselves finds itself soothed by song, however rude.”

Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor

H. E. Butler's translation:
Indeed nature itself seems to have given music as a boon to men to lighten the strain of labour: even the rower in the galleys is cheered to effort by song. Nor is this function of music confined to cases where the efforts of a number are given union by the sound of some sweet voice that sets the tune, but even solitary workers find solace at their toil in artless song.
Book I, Chapter X, 16
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
Original: (la) Atque eam natura ipsa videtur ad tolerandos facilius labores velut muneri nobis dedisse, si quidem et remigem cantus hortatur; nec solum in iis operibus in quibus plurium conatus praeeunte aliqua iucunda voce conspirat, sed etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet se rudi modulatione solatur.

Neale Donald Walsch photo

“Art imitates Nature, and Necessity is the Mother of Invention.”

Richard Franck (1858–1938) German composer

Northern Memoirs, written in 1658 and published in 1694 along with another work by Franck, The Contemplative and Practical Angler

Stephen King photo
Umberto Eco photo
William Golding photo
Thomas Bernhard photo
Louisa May Alcott photo
Megan Whalen Turner photo