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

The movement of search can only be from the known to the known, and all that the mind can do is to be aware that this movement will never uncover the unknown. Any movement on the part of the known is still within the field of the known.

Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

Imagination rules the world.

Going to Southeast Asia for the first time and tasting that spectrum of flavors – that certainly changed my whole palate, the kind of foods I crave. A lot of the dishes I used to love became boring to me.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Speak the truth, and all things alive or brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there, do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

If you can feel that Mother Earth is in you, and you are Mother Earth, then you are not any longer afraid to die because the earth is not dying. Like a wave appears and disappears and appears again.

I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least.

I feel very lucky to make a living from my imagination; I’m very grateful for that. I like that what I do is create. I’m feeling very lucky to have had the career I had. It’s gone much longer and bigger than I ever thought it would be.

The human animal originally came from out-of-doors. When spring begins to move in his bones, he just must get out again. Moreover, as civilization, cement pavements, office buildings, radios have overwhelmed us, the need for regeneration has increased, and the impulses are even stronger.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

There’s nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere.

All art is but imitation of nature.

I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe.

Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.

There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

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.

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature’s forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle.

Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

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

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.

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

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

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Oh, this base heart of ours! Hath it not enough tinder in it to set on fire the course of nature? If a spark do but fall into it, any one of our members left to itself would dishonour Christ, deny the Lord that bought us, and turn back into perdition.

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.

Speculative fiction encompasses that which we could actually do. Sci-fi is that which we’re probably not going to see.

When we understand string theory, we will know how the universe began. It won’t have much effect on how we live, but it is important to understand where we come from and what we can expect to find as we explore.

Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket – half a million dollars. It can be done.

No one even knows one percent of the fabulous history of Man; but thanks to history, we know about occurrences that go beyond the limits of the imaginable.

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

I have trouble imagining what I could do that’s beyond the practicality of what I can do.

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.

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.

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.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

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.

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

With all the travel we’re doing to cold-weather cities, your mind definitely starts to wander. It gets you away from the game. Even when you arrive in a city, you’re tempted to just sit in your hotel and rest. Sometimes it’s nice to just get out and walk around, to see what’s there.

I set up situations that involve abandoning control and finding out what happens.

A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.

You want to play another kind of character in another genre, and it’s been something I’ve been trying to do if I can in the career so far, and it’s something I hope to continue because it’s interesting to me and you get to do different things as an actor.

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

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.

Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.

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.

The great quest of life has always been to discover truth.

Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it’s only money… they don’t know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.

A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

Nature is wont to hide herself.