Quotes About Nature

Finally, the wind calmed down and gave up, and then the sun came out from behind the clouds and smiled kindly on the old man. Presently, he mopped his brow and pulled off his coat. The sun then told the wind that gentleness and friendliness were always stronger than fury and force. p160

the desire to be important is the deepest urge in human nature;

At best, the natural good-nature is edged with complaint or has changed into sullenness and gloom. And now and then it blazes forth in veiled but hot anger.

And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough one-ness with his age is a mark of the successful man. It is as though Nature must needs make men narrow in order to give them force.

Golden apples are beautiful–I remember the lawless days of boyhood, when orchards in crimson and gold tempted me over fence and field–and, too, the merchant who has dethroned the planter is no despicable parvenu.

Then, as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his feet and turned his closed eyes toward the Sea. And the world whistled in his ears.

What does a man live for but to have a girl, use his mind, practice his trade, drink a drink, read a book, and watch the martins wing it for the Amazon and the three-fingered sassafras turn red in October? Art Immelmann is right. Man is not made for suffering, night sweats, and morning terrors.

Much of current speculation about the nature of ETIs--what level of technology have you achieved?, etc.--is misguided. The first question an earthling should ask of an ETI is not: What is the level of your science? but rather: Did it also happen to you? Do you have a self? If so, how do you handle it? Did you suffer a catastrophe.

One can sniff the ozone from the pine trees, visit the local bars, eat crawfish, and drink Dixie beer and feel as good as it is possible to feel in this awfully interesting century. And now and then, drive across the lake to New Orleans, still an entrancing city, eat trout amandine at Galatoire's, drive home to my pleasant, uninteresting place, try to figure out how the world got into such a fix, shrug, take a drink, and listen to the frogs tune up.

If Darwin was right, asked Wallace, why does the Tierra del Fuegan possess a brain not discernibly different from, say, Einstein's or Beethoven's, which he does not need?

It is difficult for gods to walk the earth without taking the forms of beasts.

Beyond, a rise of sand and saw grass is creased by a rivulet of clear water in which swim blue crabs and cat-eye snails. Over the hillock lies the open sea. The difference is very great: first, this sleazy backwater, then the great blue ocean. The beach is clean and a big surf is rolling in; the water in the middle distance is green and lathered. You come over the hillock and your heart lifts up; your old sad music comes into the major.

A mare's tail of cirrus cloud stands in high from the Gulf.

She suggested that...I should examine what I had been trying to shoot at and punch and kill for so long- whether or not I had, perhaps, denied some more gentle part of my nature, and if so, what had it cost me. And don't get a tattoo for your forehead, she said, smiling. It's entirely unnecessary. As proof, she held her hands in front of her. Wiggled her fingers and smiled. Our being human made us tragic and comic both, she has said; the gods both laughed and wept.

For all I know God may be nothing more or nothing less than the sound of the moving water outside your window.

he'd just recently relocated in Connecticut after twenty three years out in Saginaw, Michigan. Great Lakes country. God's country.

Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.

Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.

Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others... And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean But I shall be good health to you nonetheless And filter and fibre your blood.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.