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Nature Quotes A man is related to all nature. – Ralph Waldo Emerson When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world – John Muir Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. – Chief Seattle One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. – William Shakespeare Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness … We can never have enough Nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, – Henry David Thoreau The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration. – Claude Monet Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more. – Vincent Van Gogh To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature. – Auguste Rodin Nature never goes out of style. – Author Unknown Art grows out of native soil and enriches life as a people attempts to express and develop this growth. It is contemporary to life itself and is fastened in the chain of human endeavor. It comes from within, stimulated by environments, and influenced by the customs and habits of a people. – Jens Jensen Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. – Hans Christian Anderson Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization. – Charles Lindbergh All things good are wild, and free. – Henry David Thoreau The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization. – Sigmund Freud Man - despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments - owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. – Author Unknown To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. – Mohandas Gandi When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. – John Muir I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. – John Burroughs If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living. – Henri Poincare To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. – John Burroughs To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. – Helen Keller In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia. – Charles A. Lindbergh Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher. – William Wordsworth Nature is man's teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence. – Alfred Billings Street You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters. – St. Bernard In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. - John Muir I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. – Walt Whitman The goal of life is living in agreement with nature. – Zeno My recollection of a hundred lovely lakes has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. – Hamlin Garland Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. – Rachel Carson The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. – e.e. cummings There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird … and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want … and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness. … I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness. – Carl Sandburg What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. – Albert Einstein In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing. … He almost always chose a path along the Big Blackfoot [River], which we considered our family river. It was there he felt his soul restored and his imagination stirred. – Norman Maclean Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. – Blaise Pascal Nature will not be admired by proxy. – Winston Churchill Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries. – Jimmy Carter I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend? – Robert Redford I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite. – Bertrand Russell A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule. – Michael Pollan I am not a lover of lawns. Rather would I see daisies in their thousands, ground ivy, hawkweed, and even the hated plantain with tall stems, and dandelions with splendid flowers and fairy down, than the too-well-tended lawn. – W.H. Hudson The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness. – John Muir Childhood is a time for discovery, and for many children the most wonderful, powerful, life-changing discoveries they will ever make lie hidden in nature. – Lolly Tai, Mary Taylor Haque, Gina K. McLellan, and Erin Jordan Knight Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons; it is to grow in the open air and eat and sleep with the Earth. – Walt Whitman Take care of the land and the land will take care of you. – H. Bennett We won't have a society if we destroy the environment. – Margaret Mead Human’s survival as a species depends upon adapting ourselves and our landscapes – settlements, buildings, rivers, fields, forests – in new, life-sustaining ways, shaping contexts that acknowledge connections to air, earth, water, life, and to each other, and that help us feel and understand these connections, landscapes that are functional, sustainable, meaningful, and artful. – Anne Whiston Spirn Everything connects with everything: all social elements and natural elements link together in a web. Whatever people do to nature, people also do to themselves, other people, and society. Whatever people do to themselves, other people, and society, people also do to nature. – Z. Elrick If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the... present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitatingly set that child's feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian! – Tom Brown Jr. Selected Native American Quotes Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. – Chief Seattle Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. – Seneca Saying Man's heart away from nature becomes hard. – Standing Bear Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. – Native American Proverb In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. – From The Great Law of The Iroquois Confederacy One does not sell the land people walk on. – Crazy Horse Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations. – Luther Standing Bear Oglala Sioux Children were encouraged to develop strict discipline and a high regard for sharing. When a girl picked her first berries and dug her first roots, they were given away to an elder so she would share her future success. When a child carried water for the home, an elder would give compliments, pretending to taste meat in water carried by a boy or berries in that of a girl. The child was encouraged not to be lazy and to grow straight like a sapling. – Mourning Dove Salish The [civilized] people, who are trying to make us over into their image, they want us to be what they call "assimilated," bringing the Indians into the mainstream and destroying our own way of life and our own cultural patterns. They believe we should be contented like those whose concept of happiness is materialistic and greedy, which is very different from our way. – From the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians We want freedom from the white man rather than to be integrated. We don't want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in peace. We don't want power, we don't want to be congressmen, or bankers....we want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage, because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here. – From the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians The [civilized] man says, there is freedom and justice for all. We have had "freedom and justice," and that is why we have been almost exterminated. We shall not forget this. – From the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians How smooth must be the language of [civilized people] when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right. – Black Hawk, Sauk When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up. When we dig roots, we make little holes. When we build houses, we make little holes. When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don't ruin things. We shake down acorns and pine nuts. We don't chop down the trees. We only use dead wood. But the [civilized] people plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything. – Wintu Woman Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted the two roads that face the light-skinned race as the road to technology and the road to spirituality. We feel that the road to technology.... has led modern society to a damaged and seared earth. Could it be that the road to technology represents a rush to destruction, and that the road to spirituality represents the slower path that the traditional native people have traveled and are now seeking again? The earth is not scorched on this trail. – William Commanda, Mamiwinini We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can't speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees. – Qwatsinas, Nuxalk Nation I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love. – Red Cloud We, the great mass of the people think only of the love we have for our land, we do love the land where we were brought up. We will never let our hold to this land go, to let it go it will be like throwing away (our) mother that gave (us) birth. – Aitooweyah Being Indian is an attitude, a state of mind, a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet; to allow feelings and sensitivities to determine where energy goes; bringing aliveness up from the Earth and from the Sky, putting it in and giving it out from the heart. – Brooke Medicine Eagle Links: Quotes from Walden, from Henry David Thoreau. Jokes, Humor, Puns Southwest Michigan's Sustainable Pursuits Additional Sustainable Pursuits 100% Totally Sustainable Go Back to Civilization vs. Uncivilization. |
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