I’m crepuscular.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

Action is character.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.

Regarded zoologically, man is today an almost isolated figure in nature. In his cradle, he was less isolated.

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I’m more at home in the vacant lots.

One of the best ways to see tree flowers is to climb one of the tallest trees and to get into close, tingling touch with them, and then look broad.

When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

I give the name of cosmic sense to the more or less confused affinity that binds us psychologically to the All which envelops us. The existence of this feeling is indubitable, and apparently as old as the beginning of thought… The cosmic sense must have been born as soon as man found himself facing the forest, the sea and the stars.

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are described as equals. If you walk into a cathedral and look at the decorations of early Christianity, there are vines, animals, creatures and birds thriving all over the stonework.

If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.

No sane man will dance.

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent animals, musical and unmusical kinds, but they are mostly noisy about the breeding season.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

I always love going on a safari drive whenever I visit Ulusaba Private Game Reserve in South Africa. I’ve been fortunate to see so many incredible animals over the years, and each time, it’s completely different. Following Ulusaba’s pack of wild dogs is my highlight.

But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

I was definitely very much a country boy.

I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

I’m just going to say it: I’m pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it’s about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we’ve done – or failed to do – with our personal values.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

We’re one of the only animals in the world that don’t really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

What is a farm but a mute gospel?

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature.

Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.

The more violent the storm, the quicker it passes.

In all my wild mountaineering, I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such times.

Please think of me like an endangered species and just observe me quietly from far away. If you try to talk to me or touch me casually, I may get intimidated and bite you. So please be careful.

It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.

In my school, the brightest boys did math and physics, the less bright did physics and chemistry, and the least bright did biology. I wanted to do math and physics, but my father made me do chemistry because he thought there would be no jobs for mathematicians.

The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

When you’re outside, and everything is highland, it’s like nature has its own sound, and that’s one of my favorite sounds. I really loved sitting still silently outside, in a tree or in a bush, to just think.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

In order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The sea, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death… these are things that unite us all.

Walking is man’s best medicine.

A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

I have always had a talent for irritating women since I was fourteen.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the ‚Not Me,‘ that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, ‚Nature.‘

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.