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Nature quotes

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“Nature will not be admired by proxy.” Winston Churchill, “The Story of the Malakand Field Force” - 1898

“Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends.” Charles Darwin, “On The Origin of Species” - 1859

“The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature.” Jules Verne, “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” - 1870

“In Nature's infinite book of secrecy a little I can read.” William Shakespeare, “Antony and Cleopatra” - 1623

“Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.” William Shakespeare, “Coriolanus” - 1623

“If you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it.” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.” Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” - 1849

“Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten. The law was: EAT OR BE EATEN.” Jack London, “White Fang” - 1906

“Nature will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning whatsoever.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!” John Muir, “The Mountains of California” - 1894

“Now if nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake of man.” Aristotle, “Politics”

“We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.” Jules Verne, “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” - 1870

“The town itself is disagreeable; but then, all around, you find an inexpressible beauty of nature.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” - 1774

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.” Francis Bacon, “The Essays of Francis Bacon” - 1597

“We told each other that Nature was beautiful, even in her tears.” Jerome K. Jerome, “Three Men in a Boat” - 1889

“Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness which Nature has kindly placed within our reach.” Samuel Johnson, “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia” - 1759

“Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet and gentle than prudent and just.” Michel de Montaigne, “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne” - 1580

“Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.” Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations” - c. 170 - 180

“There is no nature which is inferior to art, for the arts imitate the nature of things.” Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations” - c. 170 - 180

“For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.” Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations” - c. 170 - 180

“Indeed, the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbour, and such is the practice all over the world.” Voltaire, “Candide” - 1759

“We should turn resolutely towards Nature.” Samuel Beckett, “Waiting for Godot” - 1953

“There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself.” Pope Francis, “Laudato si'” - 24 May 2015

“Nature offers simply the germs which education is to develop and perfect.” John Dewey, “Democracy and Education” - 1916

“There is no cause from whose nature some effect does not follow.” Baruch Spinoza, “Ethics” - 1677

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” William Shakespeare, “As You Like It” - 1623

“I think he'll be to Rome as is the osprey to the fish, who takes it by sovereignty of nature.” William Shakespeare, “Coriolanus” - 1623

“O, why should nature build so foul a den, unless the gods delight in tragedies?” William Shakespeare, “Titus Andronicus” - 1594

“Everything kills everything else in some way.” Ernest Hemingway, “The Old Man and the Sea” - 1952

“It must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and caressing the grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve about, ever any more.” Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” - 1876

“Nature that made thee, with herself at strife, Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.” William Shakespeare, “Venus and Adonis” - 1593

“Although Oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature.” Charles Dickens, “Oliver Twist” - 1838

“But Natural Selection, we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.” Charles Darwin, “On The Origin of Species” - 1859

“Never did he fail to respond savagely to the chatter of the squirrel he had first met on the blasted pine.” Jack London, “White Fang” - 1906

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!” John Muir, “Stickeen” - 1897

“No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them.” John Muir, “Stickeen” - 1897

“Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.” John Muir, “The Mountains of California” - 1894

“Beyond the range I saw the so-called Mono Desert, lying dreamily silent in thick purple light—a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.” John Muir, “The Mountains of California” - 1894

“And in the development of these Nature chose for a tool not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries, the offspring...” John Muir, “The Mountains of California” - 1894

“With inexpressible delight you wade out into the grassy sun-lake, feeling yourself contained in one of Nature's most sacred chambers, withdrawn from the sterner influences of the mountains, secure from all intrusion, secure from yourself, free in...” John Muir, “The Mountains of California” - 1894

“But Nature, it seems, was at the bottom of the affair, and she gains her ends with dogs as well as with men, making us do as she likes, shoving and pulling us along her ways, however rough, all but killing us at times in getting her lessons...” John Muir, “Stickeen” - 1897

“Meanwhile the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her pain.” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural...” Jules Verne, “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” - 1870

“Did I not feel charmed at those truly genuine expressions of nature, which, though but little mirthful in reality, so often amused us?” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” - 1774

“The Amen! of Nature is always a flower.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” - 1858

“It has, I believe, been often remarked that a hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.” Samuel Butler, “The Note-Books of Samuel Butler” - 1912

“The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract” - 1762

Related topics

man law life beauty world killing justice philosophy freedom civilization sun sea ocean necessity animals mountains desert sweetness flower reason

Related authors

John Muir (8)
William Shakespeare (6)
Jules Verne (3)
Marcus Aurelius (3)
Charles Darwin (2)
Jack London (2)
David Hume (2)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2)
Karl Marx (2)
Pope Francis (2)
Baruch Spinoza (2)
Ernest Hemingway (1)
Mark Twain (1)
Charlotte Brontë (1)
George Orwell (1)
Charles Dickens (1)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
Winston Churchill (1)
Aristotle (1)
Thomas Hardy (1)

Related sources

The Mountains of California (5)
Stickeen (3)
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (3)
Meditations (3)
Coriolanus (2)
On The Origin of Species (2)
White Fang (2)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (2)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (2)
Das Kapital (2)
Laudato si' (2)
Ethics (2)
As You Like It (1)
Antony and Cleopatra (1)
Titus Andronicus (1)
The Old Man and the Sea (1)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1)
Venus and Adonis (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
1984 (1)