Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with meAnd tune his merry note, Unto the sweet bird's throat; Come hither, come hither, come hither. Here shall he see / No enemy / But winter and rough weather.
— As You Like It
Quotes About Nature
You step outside to bring in the washing and notice a wet leaf stuck to the step, or you hear a blackbird in the hedge before you see it. That attention is the whole subject. Tolstoy's Levin hears the grass growing and sees a wet slate-coloured aspen leaf move close to a blade of grass. Kant sees the same world as a place where everything acts according to law. Tagore offers a quieter model: the soil keeps the tree tied to her, the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.
Chekhov writes about a man who has fished or watched the thrushes hovering in flocks over the village in bright, cool autumn days; he can never really be a townsman. Byron lingers with nature because the night has been a more familiar face to him than man. Dostoyevsky warns that nature must be corrected and guided, otherwise we would all drown in prejudices. That warning sits oddly beside the others, but it shows how wide the subject opens. The same hills and leaves can be a source of law or a source of suspicion. What remains is the way a particular bird keeps its grip on a person long after the moment has passed.
Chekhov writes about a man who has fished or watched the thrushes hovering in flocks over the village in bright, cool autumn days; he can never really be a townsman. Byron lingers with nature because the night has been a more familiar face to him than man. Dostoyevsky warns that nature must be corrected and guided, otherwise we would all drown in prejudices. That warning sits oddly beside the others, but it shows how wide the subject opens. The same hills and leaves can be a source of law or a source of suspicion. What remains is the way a particular bird keeps its grip on a person long after the moment has passed.
A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.
— Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.
— Orlando
Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions.
— Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
Just fancy! One can hear and see the grass growing,' thought Levin, as he noticed wet slate-coloured aspen leaf move close to the point of a blade of grass.
— Anna Karenina
[H]e is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
— Caesar and Cleopatra
Nightingales sang about her wherever she went.
— The Silmarillion
I had an inheritance from my father, It was the moon and the sun. And though I roam all over the world, The spending of it’s never done.
— For Whom The Bell Tolls
His way had therefore come full circle, or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral, following as ever no straight unbroken line, for the rectilinear belongs only to Geometry and not to Nature and Life.
— The Glass Bead Game
Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.
— The Nicomachean Ethics
Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature.
— Meditations
One had to live a long time to know a man's true nature.
— Love in the Time of Cholera
How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!
— The Sign of Four
The troubles of modern life come from being divorced from nature.
— The Caves of Steel
I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.
— November
Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.
— Pensées
You are the trembling of time, that passesbetween vertical light and darkened sky,
— 100 Love Sonnets
I abhor the supreme folly of those who blame the disciples of nature in defiance of those masters who were themselves her pupils
— Thoughts on Art and Life
Nature can counsel nothing but crime.
— The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God.
— The Diary of a Young Girl
None can reply - all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue, which teaches awful doubt.
— Voyage of the Beagle
Every person should embrace those [dogmas] that he, being the best judge of himself, feels will do most to strengthen in him love of justice.
— Theological-Political Treatise
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
— Truth Against the World: Frank Lloyd Wright Speaks for an Organic Architecture
The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.
— Letters