Quotes About Nature

W]e people the other planets, not that we may place there different beings from ourselves, but more beings of our own and similar nature.

T]he object to which a subject essentially, necessarily relates, is nothing else than this subject's own … objective nature.

T]he creation out of nothing is no object of philosophy; … for it cuts away the root of all speculation, presents no grappling point to thought, … a baseless air-built doctrine, originated solely … to give warrant to … egoism, which … expresses nothing but the command to make Nature – not an object of thought, of contemplation, but – an object of utilisation.

N]ature listens not to the plaints of man, it is callous to his sorrows. Hence man turns away from Nature, … He turns within, that here … he may find audience for his griefs. Here he utters his oppressive secrets; … he gives vent to stifled sighs.

According to Philo, God gave Moses power over the whole of Nature; all the elements obeyed him as the Lord of Nature. … Jehovah is Israel's consciousness of the sacredness and necessity of his own existence, - a necessity before which the existence of Nature, the existence of other nations, vanishes into nothing.

Love recognises virtue even in sin, truth in error. … [L]ove is free, universal, in its nature[.]

Man has given objectivity to himself, but has not recognised the object as his own nature. … [T]he essence of religion … is evident to the thinker … . [T]he antithesis of divine and human is altogether illusory; … it is nothing else than the antithesis between the human nature in general and the human individual.

God … is nothing else than the nature of understanding made objective.

The personality of God is thus the means by which man converts the qualities of his own nature into the qualities of another being, - a being external to himself. The personality of God is nothing else than the projected personality of man.

Consciousness in the strictest sense is present … in a being whom his species, his essential nature, is an object of thought.

Consciousness in the strictest sense is present only in a being to whom his species, his essential nature, is an object of thought.

Religion, at least the Christian, is the relation of man to himself, … The divine being is … human nature purified, freed from the limits of individual man, made objective … All the attributes of the divine nature are, therefore, attributes of the human nature.

P]rayer is the … certainty that the power of the heart is greater than the power of Nature, … Prayer is the absolute relation of the human heart to itself, to its own nature; in prayer, man forgets that there exists a limit to his wishes, and is happy in this forgetfulness.

Pantheism identifies man with Nature. whether its visible appearance, or its abstract essence. Personalism isolates, separates him from Nature; converts him from a part into the whole, into an absolute essence by himself.

The conception of the morally perfect being is no merely theoretical, inert conception, but a practical one, calling me to action, to imitation, throwing me into strife, into disunion with myself; for while it proclaims to me what I ought to be, it also tells me to my face, without any flattery, what I am not. … [R]eligion renders this disunion all the more painful … [I]t sets man's own nature before him as a separate being.

Pelagianism denies God, … It has only the creator, i.e. Nature as a basis, not the Saviour, … – in a word, it denies God; … as a consequence of this, it elevates man into God, … Augustinianism denies man[.]

God is the mirror of man.

W]hen it is shown that what the subject is lies entirely in the attributes of the subject; … that the predicate is the true subject; it is also proved that if the divine predicates are attributes of the human nature, the subject of those predicates is also … human nature.

God is the nature of man regarded as absolute truth, the truth of man; … God, or what is the same thing, religion, is as various as are the conditions under which man conceives his nature, … These conditions, then, under which man conceives God, are to him the truth, and for that reason they are also … existence itself.

The more man alienates himself from Nature, the more subjective, i.e., supranatural or antinatural, is his view of things, the greater the horror he has of Nature, or at least of those natural objects and processes which displease his imagination, which affect him disagreeably.

L]ove is also the idealism of nature … Love alone makes the nightingale a songstress; love alone gives the plant it corolla. And what wonders does love not work in our social life!

T]here is no distinction between the predicates of the divine and human nature, and, consequently, no distinction between the divine and human subject … [T]he predicates are not accidents, but express the essence of the subject … [T]he essence of religion … conceives and affirms a profoundly human relation as divine relations[.]

A] merely personal God is an abstract God; but so he ought to be – that is involved in the idea of him; for he is nothing else than the personal nature of man positing himself out of all connection with the world, making itself free from all dependence on nature.

We consume the air and we are consumed by it; we enjoy and are enjoyed.