Nature

Physics does not change the nature of the world it studies, and no science of behavior can change the essential nature of man, even though both sciences yield technologies with a vast power to manipulate their subject matters. ~~ B. F. Skinner

We all need to look into the dark side of our nature -- that's where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we're busy denying. ~~ Sue Grafton

Nothing prevents us from being natural so much as the desire to appear so. ~~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Always begin anew with the day, just as nature does; it is one of the sensible things that nature does. ~~ George E. Woodberry

Different people have different duties assigned to them by Nature; Nature has given one the power or the desire to do this, and the other that. Each bird must sing with his own throat. ~~ Henrik Ibsen

Whoever wants to be a judge of human nature should study people's excuses. ~~ Friedrich Hebbel

Nature never makes any blunders; when she makes a fool she means it. ~~ Josh Billings

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them. ~~ Bertrand Russell

Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do. ~~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural as an oak tree. It comes out of the past; its foundations are laid far back. ~~ Wendell Phillips

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. ~~ Mark Twain

Nature is the art of God. ~~ Dante

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!" ~~ Robin Williams

In the realm of Nature there is nothing purposeless, trivial, or unnecessary. ~~ Maimonides

Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would. ~~ Thomas Hardy

We are naturally reverent beings, but much of our natural reverence has been torn away from us because we have been born into a world that hurries… And for all our hurrying we lose sight of our true nature a little more each day. ~~ Macrina Wiederkehr

I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains … My advice is: Go outside, to the fields, enjoy nature and the sunshine, go out and try to recapture happiness in yourself and in God. ~~ Anne Frank

God looks after the big stuff -- or Nature does, if you're not religious. Nature can look after Niagara Falls, the Antarctic, and Space. What we can look after are tiny details. ~~ Pete Townshend

Why did Nature create Man? Was it to show that she is big enough to make mistakes, or was it pure ignorance? ~~ Holbrook Jackson

Nature could not care less about wine. From her point of view, the most important part of the grape is the seeds, which ensure the survival of the species. ~~ Edward Steinberg

Art is nature speeded up, and God slowed down. ~~ M. Chazal

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart. ~~ Walter Savage Landor

The world's history is constant, like the laws of nature, and simple, like the souls of men. The same conditions continually produce the same results. ~~ Friedrich von Schiller

The cultivated man, wise to know and bold to perform, is the end to which nature works. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and nearest at hand. ~~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Nature is a kind mother. She couldn't well afford to make us perfect, so she made us blind to our failings. ~~ Josh Billings

A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature. ~~ Marcus Annaeus Seneca

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man. ~~ William Wordsworth

Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture -- and very much to our credit. ~~ Thomas Huxley

Nature, with equal mind,
Sees all her sons at play,
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away. ~~ Matthew Arnold

The chess board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the Laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. ~~ Thomas Huxley

The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self-mastery. ~~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. ~~ Thomas Henry Huxley

If you haven't at least a slight poetic crack in the heart, you have been cheated by nature. ~~ Phyllis Battelle

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead. ~~ Aldous Huxley

The whole of nature is a conjunction of the verb to eat, in the active and passive. ~~ William Ralph Inge

Egotism is nature's compensation for mediocrity. ~~ L. A. Safian

However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words. ~~ Ivan Turgenev

The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves. ~~ Willem de Kooning

Nature thrives on patience; man on impatience. ~~ Paul Boese

Nature abhors a vacuum. ~~ Francois Rabelais

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection. ~~ Charles Robert Darwin

There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth. ~~ Jean Giraudoux

To demand "sense" is the hallmark of nonsense. Nature does not make sense. Nothing makes sense. ~~ Ayn Rand

Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares. ~~ Peter Ustinov

Nature does nothing uselessly. ~~ Aristotle

The human landscape of the New World shows a conquest of nature by an intelligence that does not love it. ~~ Northrop Frye

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. ~~ Joseph Conrad

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful. ~~ Alice Walker

I don't feel compelled to treat any creature as a fellow citizen of the planet, with rights equal to mine and deserving of all courtesies, if it regards me as dinner. I'm confident that Mother Nature understands my attitude and is not offended. ~~ Dean Koontz ["Seize the Night"]

In nature there are neither rewards or punishments -- there are consequences. ~~ Robert G. Ingersoll

In nature, there is less death and destruction than death and transmutation. ~~ Edwin Way Teale

Have no fear of natural science--it brings us nearer to God. ~~ Albert Schweitzer

… the laws of nature are the same everywhere. Whoever violates them anywhere must always pay the penalty. ~~ Carl Schurz

Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men. ~~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things, and acted according to nature, whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable. ~~ William Penn

Nature works on a method of all for each and each for all. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down. ~~ Unattributed

It is far from easy to determine whether nature has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother. ~~ Pliny the Elder

The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too. ~~ Chief Luther Standing Bear

With a good heredity, nature deals you a fine hand at cards; and with a good environment, you learn to play the hand well. ~~ Walter C. Alvarez, MD

Individuality seems to be nature's whole aim -- and she cares nothing for individuals. ~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The sea possesses a power over one's moods that has the effect of a will. The sea can hypnotize. Nature in general can do so. ~~ Henrik Ibsen

We face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its costs in things natural, wild, and free. ~~ Aldo Leopold

Nature [is] that lovely lady to whom we owe polio, leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, [and] cancer. ~~ Stanley N. Cohen

It is unfair to blame man too fiercely for being pugnacious; he learned the habit from Nature. ~~ Christopher Morley

Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will find her way back. ~~ Horace

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. ~~ Thomas Huxley

Kittens believe that all nature is occupied with their diversion. ~~ Augustin-Paradis de Moncrif

Middle age is nature's way of showing a sense of humor. ~~ Unattributed

Our language, one of our most precious natural resources, deserves at least as much protection as our woodlands, streams, and whooping cranes. ~~ James Lipton

Life is an error-making and an error-correcting process, and nature in marking man's papers will grade him for wisdom as measured both by survival and by the quality of life of those who survive. ~~ Jonas Salk

Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous. ~~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Many people believe they are attracted by God, or by Nature, when they are only repelled by man. ~~ William Ralph Inge

I want nothing to do with natural foods. At my age I need all the preservatives I can get. ~~ George Burns

If this space-age, this latter second millennium, has taught us anything, it is that we live on a fragile planet with an onion-skin atmosphere, containing all that is dear to natural life. And that we humans are rapidly turning all of it to waste, including even the narrowest band of breathable air, at an alarming rate of pollution, destruction, and overpopulation. And if we have learned anything significant from the first two millenniums, it would be that we only have a tiny fraction of the third millennium to change it. I only wish I could predict we shall! ~~ Judd Hirsch

Man is demolishing nature…We are killing things that keep us alive. ~~ Thor Heyerdahl

Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature … Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. ~~ Helen Keller

We’re overlooking one of the biggest sources of natural gas in the country -- politicians. ~~ Herb True

[Prediction for the next millennium:] Out of the ashes of materialism will rise the specter of true morality and meaning of life. There will be greater compassion, concern, and commitment towards humans and nature by the year 3000. ~~ Arun Gandhi

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom. ~~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

If nature was really interested in our welfare, it would have made health catching instead of disease. ~~ Sydney J. Harris

The next millennium will bring miraculous advances in science. Man will be able to harness nature and tame the environment. But the most important task we have before us is to learn to tame man. ~~ Sidney Sheldon

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~~ E.B. White

A yawn is nature's way of giving the person listening to a bore an opportunity to open his mouth. ~~ Henny Youngman

A sense of curiosity is nature's original school of education. ~~ Smiley Blanton

When people are forced to deny their natural urges they get weird, twisted, and mean. ~~ Robert Crumb

We need the tonic of wildness [and] … nature. ~~ Henry David Thoreau

Nature gave men two ends -- one to sit on, and one to think with. Ever since then man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most. ~~ George R. Kirkpatrick

Take heed how you disguise yourself and copy others. Stick to nature if you desire to please, for whatever is fictitious and affected, is always insipid and distasteful. ~~ Charles Palmer

Healing is nature's way of telling you that you really do matter. ~~ Ashleigh Brilliant

The insufferable arrogance of human beings to think that Nature was made solely for their benefit, as if it was conceivable that the sun had been set afire merely to ripen men's apples and head their cabbages. ~~ Cyrano de Bergerac

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. ~~ Voltaire

Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished. ~~ Francis Bacon

Nature confuses the skeptics and reason confutes the dogmatists. ~~ Blaise Pascal

He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature…is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life. ~~ Henri Frederic Amiel

I am against nature. I don't dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay. ~~ Bob Dylan

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. ~~ William Burroughs

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. ~~ Francis Bacon

Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left. ~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. ~~ Tennessee Williams (see "Said Who?")

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight. ~~ Marcus Aurelius