The extreme weakness of quantum gravitational effects now poses some philosophical problems; maybe nature is trying to tell us something new here: maybe we should not try to quantize gravity.

If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it’s my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.

In this business you have to develop a thick skin, but I’m always going to feel everything. It’s my nature.

It’s tough to negotiate from a position of weakness.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

All the world lies warm in one heart, yet the Sierra seems to get more light than other mountains. The weather is mostly sunshine embellished with magnificent storms, and nearly everything shines from base to summit – the rocks, streams, lakes, glaciers, irised falls, and the forests of silver fir and silver pine.

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

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.

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.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.

I am two with nature.

To whom it may concern: It is springtime. It is late afternoon.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic – I use this metaphor a lot but I’ll use it again – it’s like a pine tree producing pine cones, or a blackberry bush producing blackberries – it’s just what happens with this being, now.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.

There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

I love the sea.

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

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

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.

The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.

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

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

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

The dispersal of juniper seeds is effected by the plum and cherry plan of hiring birds at the cost of their board, and thus obtaining the use of a pair of extra good wings.

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.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.

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.

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

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

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.

We all dream. We dream vividly, depending on our nature. Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we’re atheist.

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

What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.

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.

When we go out to the country and just sit there, what we’re really doing is just switching off various kinds of alertness that we don’t have to use. When we do that, we are stopping being defensive. We are no longer shutting ourselves off from different types of experiences, we are welcoming them in.

Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

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.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

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.

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.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

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.

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.

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

There are trees of a thousand sorts, and all have their several fruits; and I feel the most unhappy man in the world not to know them, for I am well assured that they are all valuable. I bring home specimens of them, and also of the land.