Quotes About Nature

These ecstatic moments of delight or fear, or both, "radioactive jewels buried within us, emitting energy across the years of our lives," as Chawla eloquently puts it, are most often experienced in nature during formative years.

this new frontier is characterized by at least five trends: a severance of the public and private mind from our food's origins; a disappearing line between machines, humans, and other animals; an increasingly intellectual understanding of our relationship with other animals; the invasion of our cities by wild animals (even as urban/suburban designers replace wildness with synthetic nature); and the rise of a new kind of suburban form.

Something else was different when we were young: our parents were outdoors. I'm not saying they were joining health clubs and things of that sort, but they were out of the house, out on the porch, talking to neighbors. As far as physical fitness goes, today's kids are the sorriest generation in the history of the United States. Their parents may be out jogging, but the kids just aren't outside.

Our sensitivity to nature, and our humility within it, are essential to our physical and spiritual survival. Yet, our growing disconnection from nature dulls our senses, and eventually blunts even the sharpened sensory state created by man-made or natural disaster.

children in the "green" day care, who played outside every day, regardless of weather, had better motor coordination and more ability to concentrate.

While outdoor activities in general help, settings with trees and grass are the most beneficial.

On average, the greener a girl's view from home, the better she concentrates, the less she acts impulsively, and the longer she can delay gratification.

The more high tech we become the more nature we need.

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." —CROWFOOT, CHIEF OF THE SIKSIKA FIRST NATION, 1890

As we grow more separate from nature, we continue to separate from one another physically.

Joni Mitchell had it right: "They paved paradise / and put up a parking lot." But perhaps, in the near future, we could add a line of hopeful epilogue to that song: then they tore down the parking lot / and raised up a paradise

Now, my tree-climbing days long behind me, I often think about the lasting value of those early, deliciously idle days. I have come to appreciate the long view afforded by those treetops. The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.

Genetically, we are essentially the same creatures as we were at the beginning. We are still hunters and gatherers.

thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorders and other maladies.

Nature inspires creativity in a child by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses.

Another Swarthmore parent added, "Something else was different when we were young: our parents were outdoors. I'm not saying they were joining health clubs and things of that sort, but they were out of the house, out on the porch, talking to neighbors.

It was frightening and wonderful to surrender to the wind's power.

Eventually, most of us figure out that it's people, not nature, who create morality, values, ethics- and even the idea that nature itself is worth preserving. We will live wisely- preserving water, air and everything else intrinsic to the equations we're only beginning to understand- or we won't, in which case nature will fill the vacuum we leave. She is exquisite and utterly indefferent.

My contention throughout this book is that reconnecting to nature is one key to growing a larger environmental movement. That reconnection is visceral and immediately useful to many people's lives. Encouraging personal reconnection does not mean less engagement with global environmental issues; it means more. To act, most of us need motivation beyond despair.

Countless communities have virtually outlawed unstructured outdoor nature play, often because of the threat of lawsuits, but also because of a growing obsession with order.

Nature was still out there. There was less of it, to be sure, but it was there just the same.

new studies suggest that exposure to nature may reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that it can improve all children's cognitive abilities and resistance to negative stresses and depression.

The logical extension of synthetic nature is the irrelevance of "true" nature--the certainty that it's not even worth looking at. (62)

Several of these studies suggest that thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorders and other maladies. As one scientist puts it, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.