There are trees of a thousand sorts, and all have their several fruits; and I feel the most unhappy man in the world not to know them, for I am well assured that they are all valuable. I bring home specimens of them, and also of the land.

There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

Exploration by real people inspires us.

After having dispatched a meal, I went ashore, and found no habitation save a single house, and that without an occupant; we had no doubt that the people had fled in terror at our approach, as the house was completely furnished.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

Life guided me to being a bodyguard, protecting people, then in the movies, so I’m happy with everything because basically all I ever wanted to do was be a good son and take care of my mother.

See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

If you’re in a forest, the quality of the echo is very strange because echoes back off so many surfaces of all those trees that you get this strange, itchy ricochet effect.

First and foremost comes my family and my life with Brad. We have so much joy in raising our children and teaching them about the world that nothing really compares to that.

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

I’m happiest with my family around me.

With all of their benefits, and there are many, one of the things I regret about e-books is that they have taken away the necessity of trawling foreign bookshops or the shelves of holiday houses to find something to read. I’ve come across gems and stinkers that way, and both can be fun.

Nature is not human hearted.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

Today, we’re still loaded down – and, to some extent, embarrassed – by ancient myths, but we respect them as part of the same impulse that has led to the modern, scientific kind of myth. But we now have the opportunity to discover, for the first time, the way the universe is in fact constructed as opposed to how we would wish it to be constructed.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

I was brought up differently than the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy.

I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries, and return to your Highnesses, if it please our Lord, in April.

The difficulty with this conversation is that it’s very different from most of the ones I’ve had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

Saints can be happy under every circumstance.

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.

I love all kinds of insects, and I’ve heard Australia has some really interesting bugs.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

It is a curious thing: man, the centre and creator of all science, is the only object which our science has not yet succeeded in including in a homogeneous representation of the universe. We know the history of his bones, but no ordered place has yet been found in nature for his reflective intelligence.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

Children astound me with their inquisitive minds. The world is wide and mysterious to them, and as they piece together the puzzle of life, they ask ‚Why?‘ ceaselessly.

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Modern science says: ‚The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.‘ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

Nature is our eldest mother; she will do no harm.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.

I’ve been everywhere in the world, seen everything, had everything a man can have.

I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and… I believe in miracles.

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I’ve always been very happy. I’ve always been easy going and I’ve always been very encouraging; it’s just my personality.