Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That’s the way the mind of man operates.

My choices, including those related to the day-to-day aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides me in my way of governing.

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Nature does nothing in vain.

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and – since there is no other metaphor – also the soul.

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.

When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

Nature has always had more force than education.

The coniferous forests of the Yosemite Park, and of the Sierra in general, surpass all others of their kind in America, or indeed the world, not only in the size and beauty of the trees, but in the number of species assembled together, and the grandeur of the mountains they are growing on.

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.

Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform.

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.

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.

People are underestimating the force of angry kids.

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

One of the great attractions of patriotism – it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

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

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, ‚Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.‘

Dogs never bite me – just humans.

I tell people, and it’s the truth, I could sit in my garage for a week and it won’t make me a car. And you can sit in church till your bottom is flat and that won’t make you a servant of Christ.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.

Sheep, like people, are ungovernable when hungry.

Ritual is another word for fear, manifested in a different way.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

The discontented man finds no easy chair.

For greed all nature is too little.

Beauty is the greatest seducer of man.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.

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

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you feel the impact.

I’ve found men are less likely to let petty things annoy them.

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

Lenience will operate with greater force, in some instances than rigor. It is therefore my first wish to have all of my conduct distinguished by it.

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

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.

We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.

The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.

Temptation is a woman’s weapon and man’s excuse.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

I guess if I’m a product, either you’re chocolate, you’re vanilla or you’re butterscotch. You can’t be all three.

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.

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

The unnatural, that too is natural.

Nothing on this earth is standing still. It’s either growing or it’s dying. No matter if it’s a tree or a human being.