90 Nature Quotations

"Nature is the art of God. "

-- Dante Alighieri


"The miracles of nature do not seem miracles because they are so common. If no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion would be the most startling event in the world."

-- Anonymous


"There is a wonderful law of nature that the three things we crave most- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind- are always attained by giving them to someone else. "

--Anonymous


"Our understandings are always liable to error Nature and certainty are very hard to come at, and infallibility is mere vanity and pretense "

-- Marcus Antoninus


"Nature does nothing uselessly. "

-- Aristotle


"If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is Nature's way. "

-- Aristotle


"In all things of nature there is something of the marvellous. "

-- Aristotle


"A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children. "

-- John James Audubon


"They are much to be pitied who have not been… given a taste for nature early in life."

-- Jane Austin


"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. "

-- Francis Bacon


"Great things are done when men and mountains meet. "

-- William Blake


"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity ... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."

-- William Blake


"Nature is the art of God. "

-- Thomas Browne


"Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. "

-- Jacob Brownowski


"Nature often holds up a mirror so we can see more clearly the ongoing processes of growth, renewal, and transformation in our lives."

-- Mary Ann Brussat


"Give me a spark of Nature's fire. That's all the learning I desire. "

-- Robert Burns


"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune once more. "

-- John Burroughs


"Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral. "

-- John Burroughs


"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf's a flower. "

-- Albert Camus


"It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. "

-- Rachel Carson


"In every out thrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is a story of the earth. "

-- Rachel Carson


"The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world -- the very nature of its life. "

-- Rachel Carson 1962


"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. "

-- Rachel Carson


"Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise. "

-- George Washington Carver


"Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries."

-- Jimmy Carter


"It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever."

-- Jimmy Carter


"Young people, I want to beg of you always keep your eyes open to what Mother Nature has to teach you. By so doing you will learn many valuable things every day of your life. "

-- George Washington Carver


"The boughs of no two trees ever have the same arrangement. Nature always produces individuals; she never produces classes. "

-- Lydia Maria Child


"Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal. "

-- Arthur C. Clarke


"The earth laughs in flowers. "

-- e.e. cummings


"All my life through, the new sights of nature made me rejoice like a child. "

-- Marie Curie


"Thus nature has no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on so support; and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate friendship "


-- Marcus Tullius Cicero

"If I have learned nothing else in all these months in the woods, I have thoroughly learned to keep hands off the processes of nature."

-- Laura Lee Davidson


"Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do. "

-- Michel de Montaigne


"Every flower is a soul blossoming in Nature. "

-- Gerard De Nerval


"Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift. "

-- Albert Einstein


"The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God."

-- Euclid


"Nature always wears the colors of the spirit."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. "

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them. "

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"The method of nature: who could ever analyze it? "

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it "

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair. "

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"All nature wears one universal grin. "

-- Henry Fielding


"If you poison the environment, the environment will poison you. "

-- Tony Follari


"Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint. "

-- Robert Frost


"Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment. "

-- R. Buckminster Fuller


"Be like the flower, turn your faces to the sun. "

-- Kahlil Gibran


"And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. "

-- Kahlil Gibran


"I believe in rain, in odd miracles, in the intelligence that allows terns and swallows to find their way across Earth. "

-- Paul Hawkins


"You can't just let nature run wild. "

-- Wally Hickel


"Nature yields her most profound secrets to the person who is determined to uncover them."

-- Napoleon Hill


"Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price. "

-- Napoleon Hill


"The supernatural is the natural not yet understood. "

-- Elbert Hubbard


"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."

-- Thomas H. Huxley


"There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me. "

-- Thomas Jefferson


"Deviation from nature is deviation from happiness. "

-- Samuel Johnson


"I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit. "

-- Miriam Makeba


"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them "

-- A. A. Milne Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh


"In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks."

--John Muir


"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. "

-- John Muir


"Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life. "

-- John Muir


"Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts."

-- John Muir


"The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thought and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains."

-- John Muir


"Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness. "

-- Alfred Bernhard Nobel


"A flower touches everyone's heart. "

-- Georgia O'Keefe


"Like water, be gentle and strong. Be gentle enough to follow the natural paths of the earth, and strong enough to rise up and reshape the world. "

-- Brenda Peterson


"You cannot hold back a good laugh any more than you can the tide. Both are forces of nature."

-- William Rotsler


"Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend time wondering why nature is the way it is."

-- Carl Sagan


"If all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked, out with little wildflowers. "

-- Saint Therese of Lisieux


"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. "

-- William Shakespeare


"What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it."

-- Isaac Bashevis Singer


"See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all. "

-- Socrates


"A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows. "

-- St. Francis of Assisi


"Wildness can be a way of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope. "

-- Wallace Stenger


"The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. "

-- Robert Louis Stevenson


"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


"There are for starters, grandeur and silence, pure water and clean air. There is also the gift of distance … the chance to stand away from relationships and daily ritual … and the gift of energy. Wilderness infuses us with its own special brand of energy."

-- Lynn Thomas


"Nature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance. "

-- Henry David Thoreau


"Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not. "

-- Henry David Thoreau upon the death of his brother


"Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. "

-- Henry David Thoreau


"The more we exploit nature, The more our options are reduced, until we have only one: to fight for survival. "

-- Morris K. Udall


"The more we are separated from nature, the unhappier we get. "

-- Unknown


"You can chase a butterfly all over the field and never catch it. But if you sit quietly in the grass it will come and sit on your shoulder. "

-- Unknown


"The worse I get along with people the more I learn to have faith in Nature and concentrate on her. "

-- Vincent Van Gogh


"Nature's music is never over; her silences are pauses, not conclusions. "

-- Mary Webb


"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. "

-- Walt Whitman


"Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success. "

-- Oscar Wilde


"Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction. "

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


"Nature reacts not only to physical disease, but also to moral weakness; when the danger increases; she gives us greater courage "

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

50 lessons of life

Lessons in Life By Regina Brett
To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I've ever written.

My odometer rolls over to 50 this week, so here's an update:

1. Life isn't fair , but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6 . You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone, everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don't ask, you don't get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

100 Ways to Brighten Someone's Day

1. Call an old friend, just to say hi.


2. Hold a door open for a stranger.


3. Invite someone to lunch.


4. Compliment someone on his or her appearance.


5. Ask a coworker for their opinion on a project.


6. Bring cookies to work.


7. Let someone cut in during rush hour traffic.


8. Leave a waitress or waiter a big tip.


9. Tell a cashier to have a nice day.


10. Call your parents.


11. Let someone know you miss them.


12. Treat someone to a movie.


13. Let a person know you really appreciate them.


14. Visit a retirement center.


15. Take a child to the zoo.


16. Fill up your spouse's car with gas.


17. Surprise someone with a small gift.


18. Leave a thank-you note for the cleaning staff at work.


19. Write a letter to a distant relative.


20. Tell someone you thought about them the other day.


21. Put a dime in a stranger's parking meter before the time expires.


22. Bake a cake for a neighbor.


23. Send someone flowers to where they work.


24. Invite a friend to tea.


25. Recommend a good book to someone.


26. Donate clothing to a charity.


27. Offer an elderly person a ride to where they need to go.


28. Bag your own groceries at the checkout counter.


29. Give blood.


30. Offer free baby-sitting to a friend who's really busy or just needs a break.


31. Help your neighbor rake leaves or shovel snow.


32. Offer your seat to someone when there aren't any left.


33. Help someone with a heavy load.


34. Ask to see a store's manager and comment on the great service.


35. Give your place in line at the grocery store to someone who has only a few items.


36. Hug someone in your family for no reason.


37. Wave to a child in the car next to you.


38. Send a thank-you note to your doctor.


39. Repeat something nice you heard about someone else.


40. Leave a joke on someone's answering machine.


41. Be a mentor or coach to someone.


42. Forgive a loan.


43. Fill up the copier machine with paper after you're done using it.


44. Tell someone you believe in them.


45. Share your umbrella on a rainy day.


46. Welcome new neighbors with flowers or a plant.


47. Offer to watch a friend's home while they're away.


48. Ask someone if they need you to pick up anything while you're out shopping.


49. Ask a child to play a board game, and let them win.


50. Ask an elderly person to tell you about the good old days.


51. During bad weather, plan an indoor picnic with the family.


52. Buy someone a goldfish and bowl.


53. Compliment someone on their cooking and politely ask for a second helping.


54. Dance with someone who hasn't been asked.


55. Tell someone you mentioned them in your prayers.


56. Give children's clothes to another family when your kids outgrow them.


57. Deliver extra vegetables from your garden to the whole neighborhood.


58. Call your spouse just to say, I love you.


59. Call someone's attention to a rainbow or beautiful sunset.


60. Invite someone to go bowling.


61. Figure out someone's half-birthday by adding 182 days, and surprise them with a cake.


62. Ask someone about their children.


63. Tell someone which quality you like most about them.


64. Brush the snow off of the car next to yours.


65. Return your shopping cart to the front of the store.


66. Encourage someone's dream, no matter how big or small it is.


67. Pay for a stranger's cup of coffee without them knowing it.


68. Leave a love letter where your partner will find it.


69. Ask an older person for their advice.


70. Offer to take care of someone's pet while they're away.


71. Tell a child you're proud of them.


72. Visit a sick person, or send them a care package.


73. Join a Big Brother or Sister program.


74. Leave a piece of candy on a coworker's desk.


75. Bring your child to work with you for the afternoon.


76. Give someone a recording of their favorite music.


77. Email a friend some information about a topic they are especially interested in.


78. Give someone a homemade gift.


79. Write a poem for someone.


80. Bake some cookies for your local fire or police department.


81. Organize a neighborhood cleanup and have a barbecue afterwards.


82. Help a child build a birdhouse or similar project.


83. Check in on an old person, just to see if they're okay.


84. Ask for the recipe after you eat over at someone's house.


85. Personally welcome a new employee at work and offer to take them out for lunch.


86. While in a car, ask everyone to buckle up because they are important to you.


87. Let someone else eat the last slice of cake or pizza.


88. Stop and buy a drink from a kid's lemonade stand.


89. Forgive someone when they apologize.


90. Wave to someone looking for a parking space when you're about to leave a shopping center.


91. Send a copy of an old photograph to a childhood friend.


92. Leave a pint of your spouse's favorite flavor of ice cream in the freezer with a bow on it.


93. Do a household chore that is usually done by someone else in the family.


94. Be especially happy for someone when they tell you their good news.


95. Compliment a coworker on their role in a successful project.


96. Give your spouse a spontaneous back rub at the end of the day.


97. Serve someone in your family breakfast in bed.


98. Ask someone if they've lost weight.


99. Make a donation to a charity in someone's honor.


100. Take a child to a ballgame.