That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.

Horses make a landscape look beautiful.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

It is not well to make great changes in old age.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

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.

Our constitution is a ray of hope: H for harmony, O for Opportunity, P for people’s participation and E for equality.

I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I’d invented it, because it is very true.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

My grandfather was smart and had a whole lot of pride. He didn’t speak a terrible amount, but you could tell there was a ton on his mind – like a quiet acceptance of how life had turned out.

Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as knowing what to do next.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

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.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Youth is wasted on the young.

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

No violent extreme endures.

Smart habitation is an integrated area of villages and a city working in harmony and where the rural and urban divide has reduced to thin line.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

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

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

No traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest. The majestic crowns approaching one another make a glorious canopy, through the feathery arches of which the sunbeams pour, silvering the needles and gilding the stately columns and the ground into a scene of enchantment.

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

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

Many sophisticated, intelligent people lack wisdom and common sense.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

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

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.

Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

The waving of a pine tree on the top of a mountain – a magic wand in Nature’s hand – every devout mountaineer knows its power; but the marvelous beauty value of what the Scotch call a breckan in a still dell, what poet has sung this?