Quotes About Nature

While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy, so agreeable to the natural vanity and curiosity of men; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain.

It is impious, says the modern European superstition, to put a period to our own life, and thereby rebel against our creator: and why not impious, say I, to build houses, cultivate the ground, or sail upon the ocean? In all these actions we employ our powers of mind and body to produce some innovation in the course of nature; and in non of them do we any more. They are all of them therefore equally innocent, or equally criminal.

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience as can be imagined.

Nature is always too strong for principle.

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the under-workman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces, which come from the hand of the master

Empires may rise and fall; liberty and slavery succeed alternately; ignorance and knowledge give place to each other; but the cherry-tree will still remain in the woods of Greece, Spain, and Italy, and will never be affected by the revolutions of human society.

this question depends upon the definition of the word, Nature, than which there is none more ambiguous and equivocal.

Hume argued powerfully that human reason is fundamentally similar to that of the other animals, founded on instinct rather than quasi-divine insight into things.

Art may make a suit of clothes, but nature must produce a man.

The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions.

It is only from the selfishness and confined generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin.

Can you pretend to show any such similarity between the fabric of a house and the generation of a universe? Have you ever seen Nature in any such situation as resembles the first arrangement of the elements? Have worlds ever been formed under your eye, and have you had leisure to observe the whole progress of the phenomenon, from the first appearance of order to its final consummation? If you have, then cite your experience and deliver your theory.

If only one can could know the essential natures of things, one might discover the ultimate reasons why they behave as they do: for the essential nature or essence of anything... if only it were truly adequate, all the behavioural properties of that thing must follow necessarily.

Belief doesn't consists in any special nature or order of ideas ·because the imagination has no limits with respect to those·, but rather in the manner of their conception and in their feeling to the mind. [...] In philosophy we can go no further than to assert that belief is something felt by the mind that distinguishes the ideas of the judgment from the fictions of the imagination.

Todas as cores da poesia, apesar de esplêndidas, nunca podem pintar os objetos naturais de tal modo que se torne a descrição pela paisagem real. O pensamento mais vivo é sempre inferior à sensação mais embaçada.

As for abstruse thought and profound researches, ·nature also says·, I prohibit them, and if you engage in them I will severely punish you by the brooding melancholy they bring, by the endless uncertainty in which they involve you, and by the cold reception your announced discoveries will meet with when you publish them. Be a philosopher, ·nature continues·, but amidst all your philosophy be still a man.

The identity that we ascribe to things is only a fictitious one, established by the mind, not a peculiar nature belonging to what we're talking about.

Tout est énergie. La vie est l'interaction de champs magnétiques vibratoires. Changez le magnétisme et vous changez la nature du champ énergétique. Changez le champ énergétique et vous changez la nature de la vie mentale, émotionnelle, spirituelle et physique, laquelle est la même énergie sous différentes formes.

Serdukov looked at the coast, assaulted by waves, rocks becoming sand.

He liked to collect rocks. That day, he had gathered one from near the path down Longevity Hill toward the water. It was a fine-grained piece of granite that he found under a mulberry tree. He took it from his pocket now and, as was his practice, he inscribed the time and place he had found it, in tiny characters, on the rock. He would add it to his collection, hundreds of stones neatly aligned on his shelves at home, so that he could remember

I should be content to look at a mountain for what it is and not as a comment on my life.

A grasp of the cause of the colors of the rainbow doesn't detract from its wonder.

As with any computing device, understanding the brain involves characterizing the properties of its main components (neurons), the nature of their connections (synapses), and the pattern of interconnections (wiring diagram).

This word would define the sensation of having worked and traveled hard, praying for good snow and fresh tracks, and then finding that weather, snow, timing, and camaraderie can come together into a single element.