Quotes About Nature

Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day, I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here. No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.' The hard snow held me, save where now and then One foot went through. The view was all in lines Straight up and down of tall slim trees

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all, Behind low boughs the trees let down outside; And the sweet pang it cost me not to call And tell you that I saw does still abide. But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof, For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.

You can't get too much winter in the winter.

I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.

This saying good-by on the edge of the dark And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark Reminds me of all that can happen...

the most beautiful campus that ever there was.

Nature's first green is gold. Nothing gold can stay.

If I must choose which I would elevate— The people or the already lofty mountains, I'd elevate the already lofty mountains.

The leaves let go, the seeds let go, and I must let go sometimes, too, and cast my lot with another of nature's imperfect but tenacious survivors.

Machines and relatives get most of the yelling. But never trees. As for people, well, the Solomon islanders may have a point. Yelling at living thing does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.

Does the giraffe know what he's for? Or care? Or even think about his place in things? A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.

Why is love easy? I don't know. And the raccoons don't say.

Until you have experienced raccoons mating underneath your bedroom at three in the morning, you have missed one of life's sensational moments.

And snow—snow is not my enemy, I tell him. Snow is God's way of telling people to slow down and rest and stay in bed for a day. And besides, snow always solves itself. Mixes with the leaves to form more earth, I tell him. Think compost, says I.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

Moths and butterflies are not the same thing. Moths sneak around in the dark munching your sweater and are ugly. Butterflies hand out with flowers in the daytime and are pretty. Never mind any facts or what silkworm moths are responsible for, or what poisonous butterflies do.

Why isn't love easy? I don't know. And the raccoons don't say.

If, for example, you are miserly by nature, you will never go beyond a certain limit; only generous souls attain greatness.

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 1803–1882

Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if attacked. . . . A powerful desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their . . . endowment. —Sigmund Freud

Since early morning he had been swimming in the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite all you feel when your head is under water.

Absorbed in the new scents, the sounds, and the sunlight...

And beyond the Wild Wood again?' he asked. 'Where it's all blue and dim and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they mayn't and something like the smoke of towns or is it only cloud drift.' 'Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wild World,' said the Rat. 'And that's something the doesn't matter either to you or me.

the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.