Quotes About Nature

Brunei ants even have guards that explode their own heads when threatened

Whales' vaginas can be large enough to walk through.

what is the good of a nice house without a decent planet to put it on H.D.Thoreau

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the physician father of the Supreme Court justice, was not much overstating when he declared, "I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind—and all the worse for the fishes.

Man might defined as modern largely to the extent that he attempts to control, as opposed to adjust himself to, nature.

There are limits to such manipulation. Even under torture, nature will not lie, will not yield a consistent, reproducible result, unless it is true. But if tortured enough, nature will mislead; it will confess to something that is true only under special conditions—the conditions the investigator created in the laboratory. Its truth is then artificial, an experimental artifact.

Nature answers only when she is questioned.

October, not April, would be the cruelest month.

NATURE CHOSE to rage in 1918, and it chose the form of the influenza virus in which to do

WHILE SCIENCE was confronting nature, society began to confront the effects of nature. For this went beyond the ability of any individual or group of individuals to respond to. To have any chance in alleviating the devastation of the epidemic required organization, coordination, implementation. It required leadership and it required that institutions follow that leadership.

Nature chose to rage in 1918, and it chose the form of the influenza virus in which to do it. This meant that nature first crept upon the world in familiar, almost comic, form. It came in masquerade. Then it pulled down its mask and showed its fleshleass bone.

Man might be defined as "modern" largely to the extent that he attempts to control, as opposed to adjust himself to, nature

By 1918 humankind was fully modern, and fully scientific, but too busy fighting itself to aggress against nature. Nature, however, chooses its own moments. It chose this moment to aggress against man, and it did not do so prodding languidly. For the first time, modern humanity, a humanity practicing the modern scientific method, would confront nature in its fullest rage.

Throughout known history there have been periodic pandemics of influenza, usually several a century. They erupt when a new influenza virus emerges. And the nature of the influenza virus makes it inevitable that new viruses emerge.

Jacob Henle, the first scientist to formulate the modern germ theory, echoed Francis Bacon when he said, "Nature answers only when she is questioned.

Paracelsus declared he would investigate nature "not by following that which those of old taught, but by our own observation of nature, confirmed by . . . experiment and by reasoning thereon.

first great collision between a natural force and a society that included individuals who refused either to submit to that force or to simply call upon divine intervention to

how individuals explore nature—how one does science. And the way one goes about answering a question, one's methodology, matters as much as the question itself. For the method of inquiry underlies knowledge and often determines what one discovers: how one pursues a question often dictates, or at least limits, the answer.

his celebrated theory of 'Forms'—eternal, nonphysical, quintessentially unitary entities, knowledge of which is attainable by abstract and theoretical thought, standing immutably in the nature of things as standards on which the physical world and the world of moral relationships among human beings are themselves grounded.

Natural selection is intolerant of idle verbosity.

In a world where so much of our natural heritage is being lost, why not celebrate the few bright spots where it is surviving and adapting?

Those of us who retain dead trees or place nest boxes in our yards enjoy the wonder of watching woodpeckers listen and dig for termites; we are serenaded by wrens; and we benefit from the appetites of swallow, chickadee, bluebird, and flycatcher broods that are sated on insects, including pesky mosquitoes.

To remember what bio-diversity is and why it is important, we must conserve nature close to where we live and work as well as develop distant reserves.

Maailmakõiksus siin meie ümber on paljas maailmakõiksus, ei kehvem ega ülevam sellest, mis laotub pealinna hurtsikute ja üürimajade ja templite ja kontorite kohal. Maailm on maailm, elu on elu, kõikjal seesama.