Quotes about nature (10000 quotes, page 4)

“Each individual man and each individual country, according to the principles of natural reason, is free from bondage.”

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University

Gakumon no Susume [An Encouragement of Learning] (1872–1876).
Context: Each individual man and each individual country, according to the principles of natural reason, is free from bondage. Consequently, if there is some threat that might infringe upon a country’s freedom, then that country should not hesitate even to take up arms against all the countries of the world.

Country

“No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being — they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Source: "La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'état" (The Commune of Paris and the notion of the state) http://libcom.org/library/paris-commune-mikhail-bakunin as quoted in Noam Chomsky: Notes on Anarchism (1970) http://pbahq.smartcampaigns.com/node/222
Context: I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J.-J. Rousseau and other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each — an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being — they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.

Law , Freedom , Personality

“I do not practise religion in accordance with the sacred rites. I have made mysterious Nature my religion.”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

As quoted in Claude Debussy: His Life and Works (1933) by Léon Vallas, p. 225
Variant translation: Before the passing sky, in long hours of contemplation of its magnificent and ever-changing beauty, I am seized by an incomparable emotion. The whole expanse of nature is reflected in my own sincere and feeble soul. Around me the branches of trees reach out toward the firmament, here are sweet-scented flowers smiling in the meadow, here the soft earth is carpeted with sweet herbs. … Nature invites its ephemeral and trembling travelers to experience these wonderful and disturbing spectacles — that is what I call prayer.
As quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit (2001) by H. Charles Romesburg, p. 240
Context: I do not practise religion in accordance with the sacred rites. I have made mysterious Nature my religion. I do not believe that a man is any nearer to God for being clad in priestly garments, nor that one place in a town is better adapted to meditation than another. When I gaze at a sunset sky and spend hours contemplating its marvelous ever-changing beauty, an extraordinary emotion overwhelms me. Nature in all its vastness is truthfully reflected in my sincere though feeble soul. Around me are the trees stretching up their branches to the skies, the perfumed flowers gladdening the meadow, the gentle grass-carpetted earth, … and my hands unconsciously assume an attitude of adoration. … To feel the supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests! … that is what I call prayer.

Religion

“The mind has an outlook which transcends the natural law by which it functions.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Science and the Unseen World (1929), V, p.56

Law

“My inspiration has been drawn from trees, from waves, from clouds, from the sympathies that exist between passion and the storm, between gentleness and the soft breeze, and the like, and I always endeavour to put into my movements a little of that divine continuity which gives to the whole of nature its beauty and its life.”

Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer

As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.
Context: To seek in nature the fairest forms and to find the movement which expresses the soul of these forms — this is the art of the dancer. It is from nature alone that the dancer must draw his inspirations, in the same manner as the sculptor, with whom he has so many affinities. Rodin has said: "To produce good sculpture it is not necessary to copy the works of antiquity; it is necessary first of all to regard the works of nature, and to see in those of the classics only the method by which they have interpreted nature." Rodin is right; and in my art I have by no means copied, as has been supposed, the figures of Greek vases, friezes and paintings. From them I have learned to regard nature, and when certain of my movements recall the gestures that are seen in works of art, it is only because, like them, they are drawn from the grand natural source.
My inspiration has been drawn from trees, from waves, from clouds, from the sympathies that exist between passion and the storm, between gentleness and the soft breeze, and the like, and I always endeavour to put into my movements a little of that divine continuity which gives to the whole of nature its beauty and its life.

Life , Beauty , Tree , Passion

“In these lessons direct from nature, there is a simplicity and purity that makes them of the highest value. All need the teaching to be derived from this source. In itself the beauty of nature leads the soul away from sin and worldly attractions, and toward purity, peace, and God.”

Ellen G. White book Christ's Object Lessons

Christ's Object Lessons (1900)
Context: Through the creation we are to become acquainted with the Creator. The book of nature is a great lesson book, which in connection with the Scriptures we are to use in teaching others of His character, and guiding lost sheep back to the fold of God. As the works of God are studied, the Holy Spirit flashes conviction into the mind. It is not the conviction that logical reasoning produces; but unless the mind has become too dark to know God, the eye too dim to see Him, the ear too dull to hear His voice, a deeper meaning is grasped, and the sublime, spiritual truths of the written word are impressed on the heart.
In these lessons direct from nature, there is a simplicity and purity that makes them of the highest value. All need the teaching to be derived from this source. In itself the beauty of nature leads the soul away from sin and worldly attractions, and toward purity, peace, and God.

God , Peace , Beauty , Soul

“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature. ”

Antoine François Prévost (1697–1763) French novelist

Father's Day , For Parents , For Father , Heart

“We look to Russia because Russia is our natural ally against the fiendish contamination and corruption from the west... Because we can see the commencement of our own national and socialist survival in an alliance with a truly national and socialist Russia.”

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

National Socialist Letters (Nationalsozialistische Briefe), “National Socialism or Bolshevism”, (November 15, 1925)
1920s

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

Henry Beston book The Outermost House

Source: The Outermost House, 1928, p. 25: Ch 2

Time , Fate , Universe , Animals

“Was there no sword, nothing with which to batter down these walls, this protection, this begetting of children and living behind curtains, and becoming daily more involved and committed, with books and pictures? Better burn one’s life out like Louis, desiring perfection; or like Rhoda leave us, flying past us to the desert; or choose one out of millions and one only like Neville; better be like Susan and love and hate the heat of the sun or the frost-bitten grass; or be like Jinny, honest, an animal. All had their rapture; their common feeling with death; something that stood them in stead. Thus I visited each of my friends in turn, trying, with fumbling fingers, to prise open their locked caskets. I went from one to the other holding my sorrow — no, not my sorrow but the incomprehensible nature of this our life — for their inspection. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken — I to whom there is not beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom the touch of one person with another is all, yet who cannot grasp even that, who am so imperfect, so weak, so unspeakably lonely. There I sat.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Bernard, section IX
The Waves (1931)

Tree , Hate , Making love , Sun

“I think, whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity. I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world. Many of us are guilty of an egocentric world view, and we believe that we’re the centre of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakeable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. We fear the idea of personal change, because we think we need to sacrifice something; to give something up. But human beings at our best are so creative and inventive, and we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.”

Joaquin Phoenix (1974) American actor, music video director, producer, musician, and social activist

"Joaquin Phoenix's Oscars speech in full: 'We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby'" https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/10/joaquin-phoenixs-oscars-speech-in-full, The Guardian (February 10, 2020).

Baby , Personality , People , Universe

“Why do things have to die? It is nature. And nature is flawed.”

Aaron Guzikowski tv series Raised by Wolves

Raised by Wolves, season 1, episode 4. Character Mother.

“We like to be out in nature so much because it has no opinion about us.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

“Politics is simply the interaction between two or more people. However, it's crucial for every politician to understand the interaction between people and nature. That is to say, economics is the backbone of politics.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Understanding , People

“You must be ready to sacrifice your health if you wish to gain wealth. That is simply an unavoidable law of nature.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Law , Wealth , Health

“Tell them that we are all one living body that cannot be separated from nature.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“The life of this people greatly accords with my taste, which is naturally somewhat indolent and melancholy... To repose on voluptuous ottomans and smoke superb pipes, daily to indulge in the luxuries of a bath which requires half a dozen attendants for its perfection; to court the air in a carved caïque, by shores which are a perpetual scene; and to find no exertion greater than a canter on a barb; this is, I think, a far more sensible life than all the bustle of clubs, all the boring of drawing-rooms, and all the coarse vulgarity of our political controversies.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Letter to Edward Lytton Bulwer from Constantinople, Turkey (27 December 1830), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 174

Drawing , Perfection , Thinking , Life

“Every action of man, the highest as well as the lowest, is egoistic; for it flows from a certain individuality, a certain I, with a sufficient motive, and can in no way be omitted. To go into the reason of the difference of characters is not the place here; we have simply to accept it as a fact. Now it is just as impossible for the merciful man to let his neighbor starve as it is for the hard-hearted man to help the poor. Each of the two acts according to his character, his nature, his ego, his happiness, consequently egoistically; for if the merciful one did not dry the tears of others, would he be happy? And if the hard-hearted one relieved the suffering of others, would he be satisfied?”

Philipp Mainländer (1841–1876) German poet and philosopher

Source: Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Ethik, § 11 ISBN 978-1494963262

Motivation , Tear , Happiness , Suffering

“No one can successfully shun natural responsibilities and find peace in the lifetime.”

Idegu Ojonugwa Shadrach (1995)

Peace

“Explore Nature. Go for a walk in nature. Collect leaves and flowers from your walk. Look at pictures of things, from nature, which move you. Spend time tumbling and playing with a pet. Listen to music with nature sounds. Help your child understand that since ALL comes from God and ALL is God, interacting with nature is a way of communicating with and hearing God.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

God , Communication , Flowers , Time

“Atheism is a natural result of intellectual honesty.”

Paulo Bitencourt (1966)

Source: Book “Liberated from Religion: The Inestimable Pleasure of Being a Freethinker”

“It is the universal nature of human Bildung to constitute itself as a universal intellectual being. Whoever abandons himself to his particularity is ungebildet ("unformed")—e. g., if someone gives way to blind anger without measure or sense of proportion. Hegel shows that basically such a man is lacking in the power of abstraction. He cannot turn his gaze from himself towards something universal, from which his own particular being is determined in measure and proportion.”

Hans-Georg Gadamer book Truth and Method

Source: Truth and Method

Way , Sense , Universe , Anger

“Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild..”

Immanuel Kant book Critique of Pure Reason

Source: Critique of Pure Reason

“His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

Life , World

“Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

Robert Frost Nothing Gold Can Stay

"Nothing Gold Can Stay" (1923)
1920s

Flowers

“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Part III: Man and Himself, Ch. 16: Ideas Which Have Become Obsolete, p. 158
Source: 1950s, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)

Stupidity , Democracy , Thinking

“Make ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws.”

Marc Bekoff (1945) American biologist

Source: Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect

World , Law , Change , Animals

“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

Du kannst Dich zurückhalten von den Leiden der Welt, das ist Dir freigestellt und entspricht Deiner Natur, aber vielleicht ist gerade dieses Zurückhalten das einzige Leid, das Du vermeiden könntest.
104
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

World , Suffering

“All Nature is but art, unknown to thee
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Man

Source: An Essay on Man

Art , Universe , Evil , Chance

“But my sadness is comforting
Because it’s right and natural
And because it’s what the soul should feel
When it already thinks it exists
And the hand pick flowers
And the soul takes no notice.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Sadness , Feeling , Soul , Flowers

“In nature there's no blemish but the mind.
None can be called deformed but the unkind.”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Source: Twelfth Night

“Many people would claim that the boundary conditions are not part of physics but belong to metaphysics or religion. They would claim that nature had complete freedom to start the universe off any way it wanted.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"The Quantum State of the Universe", Nuclear Physics (1984) 
Context: Many people would claim that the boundary conditions are not part of physics but belong to metaphysics or religion. They would claim that nature had complete freedom to start the universe off any way it wanted. That may be so, but it could also have made it evolve in a completely arbitrary and random manner. Yet all the evidence is that it evolves in a regular way according to certain laws. It would therefore seem reasonable to suppose that there are also laws governing the boundary conditions.

People , Religion , Way , Freedom

“The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Speech before the Colorado Live Stock Association, Denver, Colorado (August 29, 1910); in The New Nationalism (1910), p. 52; also inscribed on Cox Corridor II, a first floor House corridor, U.S. Capitol.
1910s

“When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”

Masanobu Fukuoka book The One-Straw Revolution

Source: The One-Straw Revolution

Joy , Perfection , Happiness

“The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Thinking , Victory

“Change your attitude, but remain natural.”

Pema Chödron (1936) American philosopher

Always Maintain a Joyful Mind: And Other <i>Lojong</i> Teachings on Awakening Compassion and Fearlessness

Change

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

23 February 1944 http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~param/quotes/annefrank.html
(1942 - 1944)
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

God , People , Beauty , Feeling

“Witches aren’t like that. We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

“I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 36e

Life , Horse

“The biggest changes in a women's nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Love , Women , Change

“If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? the state of nature from which he has been removed? imagine, wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Home , Imagination

“An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Source: Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1949)
Context: Experimenters are the schocktroops of science… An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature’s answer. But before an experiment can be performed, it must be planned – the question to nature must be formulated before being posed. Before the result of a measurement can be used, it must be interpreted – Nature’s answer must be understood properly. These two tasks are those of theorists, who find himself always more and more dependent on the tools of abstract mathematics.

Question , Science

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

The Yosemite http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/ (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
1910s
Variant: Everybody needs beauty... places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.

Beauty , Soul

“Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

“Real understanding does not come from what we learn in books; it comes from what we learn from love of nature, of music, of man. For only what is learned in that way is truly understood.”

Pablo Casals (1876–1973) Catalan cellist and conductor

Love , Books , Music , Way

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

As quoted in The Cat Lover's Book of Fascinating Facts : A Felicitous Look at Felines‎ (1997) by Ed Lucaire

Cats

“Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“To put it in a nutshell, he was afflicted with a love of literature. It was the fatal nature of this disease to substitute a phantom for reality.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Love , Disease , Literature , Reality

“Holiness appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness and ravishment to the soul.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Source: The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader

Peace , Soul , Appearance

“You can't think on purpose about somebody or something. Either you think about them naturally or you don't think at all.”

Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) Italian writer and journalist

Source: Boredom

Thinking

“The surya namaskar is essentially about building a dimension within you where your physical bodily cycles are in sync with the sun’s cycles, which run about twelve and a quarter years. It is not by accident but by intent that it has been structured with twelve postures. If your system is in a certain level of vibrancy and readiness, and in a high state of receptivity, then naturally your cycle will be in sync with the solar cycle. Young”

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

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

Sun

“It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

Sex , Feeling , Understanding , Question

“To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Statement from unpublished notes for the Preface to Opticks (1704) quoted in Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (1983) by Richard S. Westfall, p. 643

Age

“Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”

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

Beauty , Peaceful , Love , Art

“Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like 'What is my purpose in life?' very quickly lacked both.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Interesting Times: The Play

Life , Question

“Gaea?” Leo shook his head. “Isn’t that Mother Nature? She’s supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and dear and rabbits doing her laundry.”
“Leo, that’s Snow White,” Piper said.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Flowers , Bird , Singing

“We lose a great deal, I think, when we lose this sense and feeling for the sun. When all has been said, the adventure of the sun is the great natural drama by which we live, and not to have joy in it and awe of it, not to share in it, is to close a dull door on natures's sustaining and poetic spirit.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

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

Feeling , Thinking , Sense , Sun

“Understand the nature and influence of repeating patterns, from childhood experiences or even from past lives. Wthout understanding, patterns tend to repeat, unnecessarily damaging the relationship.”

Brian L. Weiss

Source: Messages from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love

Understanding , Past , Childhood

“Thoughts are free and subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature… create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy from which new arts flow.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Art , Freedom , Light

“I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes and accidents. Which is why I like things like cuts and bruises - they're like little flowers. I've always said that if you have a name for something, like 'cut' or 'bruise,' people will automatically be disturbed by it. But when you see the same thing in nature, and you don't know what it is, it can be very beautiful.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Hate , People , Beauty , Flowers

“Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me.”

Stephen Fry book Moab Is My Washpot

Source: Moab Is My Washpot

Depressing , Love , Death , World

“Collective wisdom, alas, is no adequate substitute for the intelligence of individuals. Individuals who opposed received opinions have been the source of all progress, both moral and intellectual. They have been unpopular, as was natural.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

Wisdom , Intelligence

“I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature..”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Feeling

“We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Subject: Jane Goodall, primatologist and conservationist http://www.dailysummit.net/says/interview260802.htm, interviewed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002)

People , World

“Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Heart Touching , Love , Heart

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

“They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.”

Emile Zola book Thérèse Raquin

Source: Thérèse Raquin

“Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Love , Feeling

“There is a love of wild Nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love ever showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

July 1890, page 315
John of the Mountains, 1938

Love

“It is a natural illness of man to think that he possesses the truth directly…”

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

C'est une maladie naturelle à l'homme de croire qu'il possède la vérité directement…
Section I
Variant translation: It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.
On the Spirit of Geometry

Truth , Thinking

“Discovery is always rape of the natural world. Always.”

Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park

Source: Jurassic Park

World

“Human subtlety…will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Richter II p. 126 no. 837 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=A7dUhbBfmzMC&pg=PA126
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Beauty

“Well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have not come to be honored on account of their usefulness, but because they are states of richer souls that are capable of bestowing and have their value in the feeling of the plenitude of life.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Will to Power

Source: The Will to Power

Life , Feeling , Soul , Help

“I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can't help it.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat

Help

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: Voyage of the Beagle

Law

“All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination. It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!”

Saul Bellow book Henderson the Rain King

General sources
Source: Henderson the Rain King (1959) [Viking/Penguin, 1984, ISBN 0-140-07269-1], ch. XVIII, p. 271

Imagination , Personality

“Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.”

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

Death

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

These are paraphrases of Muir's quote from My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) - the actual quote is listed above: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." See Sierra Club explanation http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/misquotes.aspx.
Misattributed
Variant: Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.
Variant: When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.

Peaceful , World

“In nature nothing exists alone.”

Rachel Carson book Silent Spring

Source: Silent Spring

“I am writing with my burnt hand about the nature of fire.”

Ingeborg Bachmann (1926–1973) Austrian poet and author

“To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Source: Conversations with Saul Bellow

People , Idea

“Nature is not primarily functional. It is primarily beautiful. Stop for a moment and let that sink in. We’re so used to evaluating everything (and everyone) by their usefulness that this thought will take a minute or two to begin to dawn on us. Nature is not primarily functional. It is primarily beautiful. Which is to say, beauty is in and of itself a great and glorious good, something we need in large and daily doses.”

Stasi Eldredge

Source: Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

Beauty

“Jesus tells us to keep our eyes open so we are not fooled by the signs indicating that the End Times are near. As we get closer to the End Times, many people are going to claim to be the Messiah and claim to have the answers for a troubled world. Additionally, the book of Revelation tells us to expect a period of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. It appears that we are already preparing for this time as fifty percent of all research scientists today are involved in arms development and there is at least one military weapon and four thousand pounds of explosives for every man, woman, and child on earth. Finally, there will be more and more disease and devastation. Today, as you read this, millions of people in the world are being afflicted by insufficient food, the spread of new diseases, and the devastating effects of natural disasters. As we get closer to the End Times, there will be more and more famine. There will also be an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters. Christ also spoke of pestilence: the spread of new diseases. Our world will experience a spate of tragic new diseases that we will be unable to control.”

David Jeremiah

Source: The Prophecy Answer Book

War , People , Books , World

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Leadership , Relationship

“I’m a lunatic by nature, and lunatics don’t need training – they just are.”

Ozzy Osbourne book I Am Ozzy

Source: I Am Ozzy

Training

“The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Books , Joy

“Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

Lying

“when she thought it over afterwards it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Time

“Anyone who falls in love is searching for missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time. It's just a natural feeling. You're not the person who discovered that feeling, so don't go trying to patent it, okay?”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore (2002)

Love , Sadness , Feeling , Search

“Bible in Life Walking With God GENESIS 1:27–31 Genesis describes the unique nature of our relationship with God our Creator. In John 4:24, Jesus says that “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Christ was completely human and also completely divine. Humans, created in God’s image, are spiritual creatures. We have the potential for a complete spiritual relationship with God through”

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

Source: NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter

Life , God , Truth , Christ

“Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.”

Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly

God , Personality

“As the Arabs say, "The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: Awareness: Conversations with the Masters

Flowers

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Bestselling Guide to Reading Books and Accessing Information

Wisdom , Books , Learning

“Air travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Way , Travel , Photo

“Ifis the bond binding me tolife, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universalof?”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844/The Communist Manifesto

Money

“I fear that, with our current veneration for the natural and the real, we have arrived at the opposite pole to all idealism, and have landed in the region of the waxworks.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Source: The Birth of Tragedy

Fear

“In the cycle of nature there is no such thing as victory or defeat; there is only movement.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Victory

“If you torture the data enough, nature will always confess.”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

Coase states that he said this in a talk at the University of Virginia in the early 1960s and that this saying, "in a somewhat altered form, has taken its place in the statistical literature."
Alternative: "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess."
Cited in: Gordon Tullock, "A Comment on Daniel Klein's 'A Plea to Economists Who Favor Liberty'", Eastern Economic Journal, Spring 2001.
1960s-1980s, "How should economists choose?" (1981)
Source: Essays on Economics and Economists

Quotes about nature page 4

Quotes about nature
page 4