our fourth page of quotations and passages on nature

nature - nature 2 - nature 3

After all, I don't see why I am always asking for
private, individual, selfish miracles when every
year there are miracles like white dogwood.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes
our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep blue sky, and the
clustering stars above, seem to impart a quiet to the mind.

unattributed

But, indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim
upon people's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality
of the air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully
changes and renews a weary spirit.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

They who wander widest lift
No more of beauties' jealous veils,
Than they who from their doorways see
The miracle of flowers and trees.

John Greenleaf Whittier

No life can be barren which hears the
whisper of the wind in the branches, or
the voice of the sea as it breaks upon
the shore; and no soul can lack happiness
looking up to the midnight stars.

William Winter

Nature, like a kind and smiling mother,
lends herself to our dreams and
cherishes our fancies.

Victor Hugo

The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient
rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such
a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

Henry David Thoreau

Cliffs that rise a thousand feet without a break,
Lakes that stretch a hundred miles without a wave,
Sands that are white through all the year, without a stain,
Pine-tree woods, winter and summer, ever green,
Streams that forever flow and flow without a pause,
Trees that for twenty thousand years your vows have kept,
You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveler's heart.

Chang Fang-sheng

I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth. Lying down on the grass,
I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun, the air, and the distant sea far
beyond sight. I thought of the earth's firmness--I felt it bear me up: through
the grassy couch there came an influence as if I could feel the great earth
speaking to me. I thought of the wandering air--its pureness, which is its beauty;
the air touched me and gave me something of itself. I spoke to the sea: though
so far, in my mind I saw it, green at the rim of the earth and blue in deeper ocean;
I desired to have its strength, its mystery and glory. Then I addressed the sun,
desiring the soul equivalent of his light and brilliance, his endurance and unwearied
race. I turned to the blue heaven over, gazing into its depth, inhaling its exquisite
colour and sweetness. The rich blue of the unattainable flower of the sky drew
my soul towards it, and there it rested, for pure colour is rest of heart. By all these
I prayed; I felt an emotion of the soul beyond all definition; prayer is a puny thing
to it, and the word is a rude sign to the feeling, but I know no other. By the blue
heaven, by the rolling sun bursting through untrodden space, a new ocean of ether
every day unveiled. By the fresh and wandering air encompassing the world;
by the sea sounding on the shore--the green sea white-flecked at the margin and
the deep ocean; by the strong earth under me. Then, returning, I prayed by the
sweet thyme, whose little flowers I touched with my hand ; by the slender grass;
by the crumble of dry chalky earth I took up and let fall through my fingers.
Touching the crumble of earth, the blade of grass, the thyme flower, breathing
the earth-encircling air, thinking of the sea and the sky, holding out my hand for
the sunbeams to touch it, prone on the sward in token of deep reverence, thus
I prayed that I might touch the unutterable existence infinitely higher than deity.

Richard Jefferies

The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today
is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents
my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should
continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and
destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass
on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, would be good for me, too.

Henry David Thoreau

The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass, they speak to me.
The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky,
the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning,
the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me.
The strength of the fire, the taste of the salmon,
the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars.

Chief Dan George

People's hearts away from nature become hard.

Standing Bear

Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars. . .
and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful.
Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going
to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich
and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason.
It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.

Osho

I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine
and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon
a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It 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.
Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and
benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote
wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy.

Hamlin Garland

If the sight of the
blue skies fills you
with joy, if a blade
of grass springing up
in the fields has
power to move you,
if the simple things
of nature have a
message that you
understand, rejoice,
for your soul is alive.

Eleonora Duse

Once you have heard the lark, known the swish of feet
through hill-top grass and smelt the earth made ready
for the seed, you are never again going to be fully happy
about the cities and towns that people
carry like a crippling weight upon their backs.

Gwyn Thomas

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This above all--ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write?
Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative,
if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple "I must,"
then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most
indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony
to it. Then draw near to Nature. Then try, like some first human being,
to say what you see and experience and love and lose.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Articles and book excerpts on nature:

Nourishing Awareness in Each Moment Thich Nhat Hanh
A Supposed Letter from Chief Seattle
The Secret of the Masters--Yours! Asoka Selvarajah

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

There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into
the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations.

Washington Irving

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty
if only we have the eyes to see them.

John Ruskin

Nature, like a kind and smiling mother,
lends herself to our dreams and cherishes our fancies.

Victor Hugo

Let us permit nature to have her way:
she understands her business better than we do.

Michel de Montaigne

Familiarity with nature never breeds contempt. The more one learns,
the more one expects surprises, and the more one becomes aware
of the inscrutable.

Archibald Rutledge

Go forth, under the open sky, and listen to Nature's teachings.

William Cullen Bryant

We cage a bird for our own pleasure. We do not cage the bird for its pleasure.
That is not the highest love for the bird. The highest love for all things is for
us a literal source of life. The more things in the world of Nature to which we
can give the higher love, the more of their natural love and life shall we get in
return. So, as we grow, refine and increase this power of recognizing and
loving the bird, the animal, the insect or, in other words, the Infinite in all
things, we shall receive a love, a renewed life, strength, vigour, cheer and
inspiration from not only these, but the falling snow-flake, the driving rain,
the cloud, the sea, the mountain. And this will not be a mere sentiment, but
a great means for recuperating and strengthening the body, for this strengthens
the spirit with a strength which comes to stay, and what strengthens the spirit
must strengthen the body. We cannot make of ourselves this capacity for so
loving and drawing strength from all things. It is our belonging,
but must be demanded of the Supreme Power.

Prentice Mulford

The only important thing is to follow nature. A tiger should be a good tiger;
a tree, a good tree. So people should be people. But to know what people
are, one must follow nature and go alone, admitting the importance of the
unexpected. Still, nothing is possible without love. . . . For love puts one in
a mood to risk everything, and not to withhold important elements.

Carl Jung

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

William Wordsworth

If only we know, boss, what the stones and rain and flowers say. Maybe
they call--call us--and we don't hear them. When will people's ears open,
boss? When shall we have our eyes open to see? When shall we open
our arms to embrace everything--stones, rain, flowers, and people? What
do you think about that, boss? And what do your books have to say about that?

Nikos Kazantzakis

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