Immanuel Kant on nature

Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Whatever, over and above good life-conduct, man fancies that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious delusion and counterfeit worship of God.

There is … only a single categorical imperative and it is this: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Every day, man is making bigger and better fool-proof things, and every day, nature is making bigger and better fools. So far, I think nature is winning.

Albert Einstein1879–1955

Nature does nothing uselessly.

Aristotle384–322 BCPolitics, Book I, 1253a.8

Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.

Baltasar Gracián1601–1658

• Art