Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.

God created man, but I could do better.

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

A man’s character is his guardian divinity.

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.

All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man’s actions.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.

What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!

Here ends my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion. I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built. And, rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again.

True Scouts are the best friends of animals, for from living in the woods and wilds, and practising observation and tracking, they get to know more than other people about the ways and habits of birds and animals, and therefore they understand them and are more in sympathy with them.

Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

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

If I see a mountain, I just pick up and hike it.

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

I just think cities are unnatural, basically. I know there are people who live happily in them, and I have cities that I love, too. But it’s a disaster that we have moved so far from nature.

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

‚O sleep, O gentle sleep,‘ I thought gratefully, ‚Nature’s soft nurse!‘

There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords.

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

There are things around, and I know where they can be got quite easily, but I quite like waking up to the sunshine.

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.

It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man’s insecurity before himself and before nature.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased.

Electrical science has disclosed to us the more intimate relation existing between widely different forces and phenomena and has thus led us to a more complete comprehension of Nature and its many manifestations to our senses.

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.

A man is great by deeds, not by birth.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

Motives reveal why we do what we do, which is actually more important to God than what we’re doing.

Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.

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

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.

If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.

He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural.

I would like to express the thoughts of a man who, having finally penetrated the partitions and ceilings of little countries, little coteries, little sects, rises above all these categories and finds himself a child and citizen of the Earth.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.