Best 6303 quotes in «nature quotes» category

A dam is monumentally static; it tries to bring a river under control, to regulate its seasonal pattern of floods and low flow.

Adults enjoy this book as much as kids! Every person I hear from says they learned something and it was fun. "I wish I were as smart as Miss Marble!

A dying tree still gives air to those who harm him.

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

A few minutes of solitude in majestic nature is bliss and is food for the soul. Lucky are the ones who can have it for they have indeed enriched their souls. People too busy to take time out for these moments to connect with their souls through nature have definitely suffered unknowingly. So take heed and take time out each day to connect with nature for that is food for the soul.

A far cicada rings high and clear over the river’s heavy wash. Morning glory, a lone dandelion, cassia, orchids. So far from the nearest sea, I am taken aback by the sight of a purple land crab, like a relict of the ancient days when the Indian subcontinent, adrift on the earth’s mantle, moved northward to collide with the Asian landmass, driving these marine rocks, inch by inch, five miles into the skies. The rise of the Himalaya, begun in the Eocene, some fifty million years ago, is still continuing: an earthquake in 1959 caused mountains to fall into the rivers and changed the course of the great Brahmaputra, which comes down out of Tibet through northeastern India to join the Ganges near its delta at the Bay of Bengal.

A fire burns in the evening sky Breaking like an egg in a pan A sea of yellowish orange spreads In accordance with divine plan.  Vibrant paint drips to the edge Of ashen clouds drifting past The sun is a messy painter Every brush stroke massive and vast. The clouds are like matches Starting as fiery flame Then fading to ashes  A burning passion, tamed.  The red, orange, yellow leaves On the ground in this season Reflect the colors of the sky, and The sunlight that used to feed them.  A September sunset beaming  Down as a sailor's last call A herald for the coming winter A message, enjoy the fleeting fall.

A flock of small birds took off from the wall of the fort. They moved like a length of dark silk caught by the breeze as they headed out to sea. Behind them, the sky was the colour of forget-me-nots. The sun blazed.

A flower will always grow in the direction of the sun because beauty recognises beauty.

A flower's soul is made of beauty, which is why it lives on even after it dies.

A forest full of trees is as important and valuable as a mine full of gold.

A fox raised in a jungle is fiercer than a bear raised in a circus.

After all that is said and done, love is always where we come back to as it is where we start. Love is this beautiful meeting place in infinite space. It is lived right here on earth. Love is the source of what we are. In reality, we never start, we never depart. Love knows no beginning, it knows no end. Love always 'is'. The truth is that One's love upholds Space, time, and matter as in "I|III'. This loving current, this energy, this moment, it is where we always find ourselves no matter the place or time. What it means is that wherever we go, we are always home, as all life is eternally lived in the same source of one who loves all. No exceptions as Love is all-inclusive. We are all One in- & from the same source. All of us, we are always present and always accounted for. The heart of all matter? It always 'is'. It is Love.

After I'd had a chance to think about it for a while I began to understand why I felt this sudden joy when Kakuro was talking about the birch trees. I get the same feeling when anyone talks about trees, any trees: the linden tree in the farmyard, the oak behind the old barn, the stately elms that have all disappeared now, the pine trees along the windswept coasts, etc. There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature . . . [sic] yes, that's it: just thinking about trees and their indifferent majesty and our love for love teaches us how ridiculous we are--vile parasites squirming on the surface of the earth--and at the same time how deserving of life we can be, when we honor this beauty that owes us nothing. Kakuro was talking about birch trees and, forgetting all those psychoanalysts and intelligent people who don't know what to do with their intelligence, I suddenly felt my spirit expand, for I was capable of grasping the utter beauty of the trees.

After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only—spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere: in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high wind—rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring.

Afternoon light like pollen. This is my language, not the one I learned.

After the sorts of winters we have had to endure recently, the spring does seem miraculous, because it has become gradually harder and harder to believe that it is actually going to happen. Every February since 1940 I have found myself thinking that this time winter is going to be permanent. But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment. Suddenly, towards the end of March, the miracle happens and the decaying slum in which I live is transfigured.

After Sade, violence, life and death, desire, and sexuality will extend, below the level of representation, an immense expanse of darkness, which we are now attempting to recover...in our discourse, in our freedom, in our thought.

After seven days of fasten so it was, that the thoughts of my heart were very grievous unto me- and my soul recovered the spirit of understanding.

After your visits, I twisted my blinds shut every night. I locked out the stars and I never saw lightning again. Each night, I simply turned out the lights and went to bed.

A full moon, although less splendid than that earlier on,lit everything around. Before I reached the point where I would have to leave the road and set off across country, the narrow path I was following seemed suddenly to end and disappear behind a large hedge, and there before me, as if blocking my way, stood a single, tall tree, very dark at first against the transparently clear night sky. Out of nowhere, a breeze got up. It set the tender stems of the grasses shivering, made the green blades of the reeds shudder and sent a ripple across the brown waters of a puddle. Like a wave, it lifted up the spreading branches of the tree and, murmuring, climbed the trunk, and then, suddenly, the leaves turned their undersides to the moon and the whole beech tree (because it was a beech) was covered in white as far as the topmost branch.It was only a moment, no more than that, but the memory of it will last as long as my life lasts.

After work the following Monday Larry sat on his porch not reading but waiting in his usual company of bats and birds and insects, the tinkling of his mother's chime each time the earth breathed its wind. He was disappointed but not surprised when the night stole the far trees and the fence across the road and then the road itself and finally the sky, Larry's truck gone too in the dark and stars beginning to wink in the sky like nail holes in the roof of a barn.

Again burst out that chant McKay had heard as he had floated through the mists upon the lake. Now, as then, despite his opened ears, he could distinguish no words, but clearly he understood its mingled themes - the joy of Spring's awakening, rebirth, with the green life streaming singing up through every bough, swelling the buds, burgeoning with tender leaves the branches; the dance of the trees in the scented winds of Spring; the drums of the jubilant rain on leafy hoods; passion of Summer sun pouring its golden flood down upon the trees; the moon passing with stately step and slow and green hands stretching up to her and drawing from her breast milk of silver fire; riot of wild gay winds with their mad pipings and strummings; - soft interlacing of boughs, the kiss of amorous leaves - all these and more, much more that McKay could not understand for it dealt with hidden, secret things for which man has no images. ("The Women Of The Woods")

A gigantic tree stands at the edge of the cliff, a tree that looks like it has existed since the beginning of the world and props up not only the sky but also time.

Ah, but when one predator leaves, another inevitably will take its place. A void never remains a void for long.

A hoverfly is held in a sunbeam, an insect in amber.

A hundred lifetimes wouldn't suffice to see all the beauty in one acre of land.

A journey through nature is always a road to leads to self-discovery.

A human being too, is many things. Whatever makes up the air,the earth, the herbs, the stones is also part of our bodies. We must learn to be different, to feel and taste the manifold things that are us.

A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky’s stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I’ll not go northing this year. I’ll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow’s fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow’s seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming.

A journey deep into the Kingdom of Nature is always a mysterious journey, a Sufistic voyage, a spiritual trip!

A lake so vibrant in color that it looks like a fine art painting.

A Late Walk - A Tree beside the wall stands bare, But a leaf that lingered brown, Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought, comes softly rattling down. I end not far from my going forth By picking the faded blue Of the last remaining aster flower to carry again to you.

Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through the Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. (...) Once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. (...) Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. (...) You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did. Take care Ron, Alex

A lily is a water's diamond.

A lion does not become king of the jungle hunting mice.

A lion does not earn its crown quarreling with sheep.

All at once, something wonderful happened, although at first, it seemed perfectly ordinary. A female goldfinch suddenly hove into view. She lighted weightlessly on the head of a bankside purple thistle and began emptying the seedcase, sowing the air with down. The lighted frame of my window filled. The down rose and spread in all directions, wafting over the dam’s waterfall and wavering between the tulip trunks and into the meadow. It vaulted towards the orchard in a puff; it hovered over the ripening pawpaw fruit and staggered up the steep faced terrace. It jerked, floated, rolled, veered, swayed. The thistle down faltered down toward the cottage and gusted clear to the woods; it rose and entered the shaggy arms of pecans. At last it strayed like snow, blind and sweet, into the pool of the creek upstream, and into the race of the creek over rocks down. It shuddered onto the tips of growing grasses, where it poised, light, still wracked by errant quivers. I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place in this moment, with the air so light and wild? The same fixity that collapses stars and drives the mantis to devour her mate eased these creatures together before my eyes: the thick adept bill of the goldfinch, and the feathery coded down. How could anything be amiss? If I myself were lighter and frayed, I could ride these small winds, too, taking my chances, for the pleasure of being so purely played. The thistle is part of Adam’s curse. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” A terrible curse: But does the goldfinch eat thorny sorrow with the thistle or do I? If this furling air is fallen, then the fall was happy indeed. If this creekside garden is sorrow, then I seek martyrdom. I was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off. Alleluia.

All churches are an echo of this—the Cathedral of Nature.

All finite things reveal infinitude: The mountain with its singular bright shade Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow, The after-light upon ice-burdened pines; Odor of basswood on a mountain-slope, A scent beloved of bees; Silence of water above a sunken tree: The pure serene of memory in one man, – A ripple widening from a single stone Winding around the waters of the world.

...all flourishing is mutual.

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— And Winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may, For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away! With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll: And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live. - Work without Hope

All night the earth and the heavens followed their usual arrangements. Stars passed: an immense tide hung over them. A silent sea raced back with the sun, its wave turn-over small, delicate and comfortless. The most glorious of all stars hung above the sun's threshold and went out. An hour later the sun governed the earth again, mist-chasing, flower-opening, bird-rousing, ghost-driving, spirit-shepherding back out the various gates of sleep.

All must pay the debt of nature.

All of Nature follows perfectly geometric laws. The Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Peruvian, Mayan, and Chinese cultures were well aware of this, as Phi—known as the Golden Ratio or Golden Mean—was used in the constructions of their sculptures and architecture.

All of my life God has allowed me to share prospectives with people who are different. You cannot lead people whose prospective you are not willing to understand.

All seasons are spectacular.

All shoes have value but shoes do not have same value.

All the beauty of the spring went for happy men to think of all the increase of the year was for other eyes to mark. Not a sign of any sunrise for me from my fount of life; not a breath to stir the dead leaves fallen on my heart’s Spring.

All the evil in the world comes from us bothering with each other, Wanting to do good, wanting to do evil. Our soul and the sky and the earth are enough for us. To want more is to lose this, and be unhappy.