The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Henry David Thoreau3 quotes
If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! — Henry David Thoreau · 1862We can never have enough of nature…. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. — Henry David Thoreau · 1853Aldo Leopold2 quotes
Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. — Aldo Leopold · 1949We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. — Aldo Leopold · 1949Blaise Pascal2 quotes
Man is only a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. — Blaise Pascal · 1662For after all, what is man in nature? A nothing in respect of that which is infinite, an all in respect of nothing, a middle betwixt nothing and all. — Blaise Pascal · 1662Buckminster Fuller2 quotes
Now there is one outstanding important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it. — Buckminster Fuller · 1969Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment. — Buckminster Fuller · 1978John Muir2 quotes
In God's wildness lies the hope of the world—the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. — John Muir · 1890The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains—mountain-dwellers who have grown strong there with the forest trees in Nature's workshops. — John Muir · 1890Ralph Waldo Emerson2 quotes
Come out of your warm, angular house, resounding with few voices, into the chill, grand, instantaneous night, with such a Presence as a full moon in the clouds. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1838The sky is the daily bread of the eyes. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1843Wallace Stegner2 quotes
These are some of the things wilderness can do for us. That is the reason we need to put into effect, for its preservation, some other principle that the principles of exploitation or "usefulness" or even recreation. We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope. — Wallace Stegner · 1960The national park idea, the best idea we ever had, was inevitable as soon as Americans learned to confront the wild continent not with fear and cupidity but with delight, wonder, and awe. — Wallace Stegner · 1983Angel1 quote
Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees. — Angel · 90Barbara Wand1 quote
We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do. — Barbara Wand · 1972Bodhi1 quote
Just feel what the wave is doing. Then accept its energy. Get in sync and charge with it. You don't need to see. — Bodhi · 1991Carl Becker1 quote
The significance of man is that he is that part of the universe that asks the question, What is the significance of Man? He alone can stand apart imaginatively and, regarding himself and the universe in their eternal aspects, pronounce a judgement. The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it. — Carl Becker · 1936Claude Monet1 quote
I have no other wish than a close fusion with nature. — Claude MonetE.O. Wilson1 quote
The truth is that we need invertebrates but they don't need us. If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change... But if invertebrates were to disappear, I doubt that the human species could last more than a few months. — E.O. Wilson · 1987Francis Bacon1 quote
Nature to be commanded must be obeyed. — Francis Bacon · 1620Francis Kilvert1 quote
It is a fine thing to be out on the hills alone. A man can hardly be a beast or a fool alone on a great mountain. — Francis Kilvert · 1871George Perkins Marsh1 quote
Man is everywhere a disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. — George Perkins Marsh · 1864Henry Beston1 quote
The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. — Henry Beston · 1928Horace1 quote
You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she will hurry back. — Horace · 20 BCJohn Quincy Adams1 quote
The forest has fallen by the ax of our woodsmen; the soil has been made to teem by the tillage of our farmers; our commerce has whitened every ocean. The dominion of man over physical nature has been extended by the invention of our artists. — John Quincy Adams · 1825Lawrence Durrell1 quote
We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it. — Lawrence Durrell · 1957Leonardo da Vinci1 quote
Human subtlety... Will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1519Li Bai1 quote
Drunk we lie down in empty hills,
heaven and earth our quilt and pillow. — Li Bai · 762Lord Byron1 quote
How beautiful is all this visible world!
How glorious in its action and itself!
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride. — Lord Byron · 1817Marcus Aurelius1 quote
All that is in harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Norman Maclean1 quote
I am haunted by waters. — Norman Maclean · 1976Robert Thorne1 quote
There is no land unhabitable nor sea innavigable. — Robert Thorne · 1589Sinclair Lewis1 quote
Most troubles are unnecessary. We have Nature beaten; we can make her grow wheat; we can keep warm when she sends blizzards. So we raise the devil just for pleasure-wars, politics, race-hatreds, labor-disputes. — Sinclair Lewis · 1920Sir Thomas Browne1 quote
There is surely a peece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643Thomas Fuller (physician)1 quote
He that plants trees loves others beside himself. — Thomas Fuller (physician) · 1732Thomas Pynchon1 quote
All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all. — Thomas Pynchon · 1973