quotations about nature
The student of nature is like one who goes with a candle into some immense cavern. Presently a little circle becomes clear, the shadows vanish before him, and undefined forms grow distinct. He thinks he is near the end, when, lo! what seemed a solid boundary of rock dissolves and floats away into a depth of darkness, the path opens into an immense void, new shapes of mystery start out, and he learns this much that he did not know before, that instead of being near the end he is only upon the threshold.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Our relationship with nature is dependent on more than the way the wind blows and the flowers bloom.
SHAUN HURRELL
"After the Arab Spring: learning to love nature again", Birdlife, August 11, 2017
Nature isn't just something that pushes up through the sidewalk cracks and keeps the farmers trapped in the sticks but is an elixir, a luxury that can be bought and fenced off and kept pure for the more fortunate, in an impure age.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit is Rich
All nature is a vast symbolism: Every material fact has sheathed within it a spiritual truth.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
There is constant life in [Nature], motion and development; and yet she remains where she was. She is eternally changing, nor for a moment does she stand still. Of rest she knows nothing, and to all stagnation she has affixed her curse. She is steadfast; her step is measured, her exceptions rare, her laws immutable.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Nature insists on whatever benefits the whole.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Nature talks in symbols; he who lacks imagination cannot understand her.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Nature does nothing uselessly.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Despite our strongly felt kinship and oneness with nature, all the evidence suggests that nature doesn't care one whit about us. Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen without the slightest consideration for human inhabitants.
ALAN LIGHTMAN
"Our Lonely Home in Nature", The New York Times, May 2, 2014
Nature is God perpetually working; and we need only look around us to see and to feel that truth of a Providence to which our deepest instincts turn.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Search out the wisdom of Nature, there is depth in all her doings.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
The man or woman that sees no beauty in surrounding nature has a soul that sleeps.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On the Endless Beauty in Nature", Short Essays
Nature would be scarcely worth a puff of the empty wind if it were not that all Nature is but a temple, of which God is the brightness and the glory.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Nature is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities, as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Tatler, August 26, 1710
The muffled syllables that Nature speaks
Fill us with deeper longing for her word;
She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,
She makes a sweeter music than is heard.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
"Premonition", A Hermit of Carmel and Other Poems
Nature never breaks her laws.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
God made the forests, the tiny stars, and the wild winds--and I think that he made them partly as a balance for that kind of civilization that would choke the spirit of joy out of our hearts. He made the great open places for the people who want to be alone with him and talk to him, away from the crowds that kill all reverence. And I think that he is glad at times to have us forget our cares and responsibilities that we may be nearer him--as Jesus was when he crept away into the wilderness to pray.
MARGARET ELIZABETH SANGSTER
"The Gypsy Spirit"
Y'know, Nature's unpredictable -- that's why we had to tame her. Maybe we went too far, but in principle we made the right decision.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Stone Gods
Art is man's nature; nature is God's art.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
All nature ... is a respiration
Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing hereafter
Will inhale it into his bosom again,
So that nothing but God alone will remain.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Golden Legend