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Quotes about nature

276 quotes from 143 people

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It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.
Pliny the Elder20–79Naturalis Historia, Book VII, sec. 1.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)In context
Nature is, and must be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellencies must originally flow.
Joshua Reynolds1723–1792Discourse no. 6; vol. 1, p. 162.
The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945Letter to all State Governors on a Uniform Soil Conservation Law (26 February 1937)
The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.
Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919Speech before the Colorado Live Stock Association, Denver, Colorado (August 29, 1910); in The New Nationalism (1910), p. 52
- Responsibility
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
Christina Rossetti1830–1894In the Bleak Midwinter (1872)In context
- Christmas
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.
Christina Rossetti1830–1894Who Has Seen the Wind? (1872)In context
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro’.
Christina Rossetti1830–1894Who Has Seen the Wind? (1872)In context
It is in man’s heart that the life of nature’s spectacle exists; to see it, one must feel it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712–1778Emile (1762).
Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves, but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.
Carl Sagan1934–1996Who Speaks for Earth? [Episode 13], 54 min 25 sec
- Responsibility
As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky.
Carl Sagan1934–1996Cosmos (1980), p. 318
Art is a demonstration of which nature is the proof.
George Sand1804–1876François le Champi, Introduction (1848); Jane Minot Sedgwick (trans.) François the Waif {New York: H. M. Caldwell, 1894) p. 17
- Art
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Carl Sandburg1878–1967Fog (1916)In context
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work⁠—
I am the grass; I cover all.
Carl Sandburg1878–1967Grass (1918)In context
- War & Peace
There is no reason to be less moved by nature around us simply because it’s revealed to have more layers of complexity than we first observed.
Robert Sapolskyborn 1957Emperor Has No Clothes Award acceptance speech (2003)
- Science