The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?

When I was researching my book ‚The 33 Strategies of War‘, I studied Napoleon extensively and I found myself wanting to ask Napoleon questions about things he did, and if was I interpreting his actions correctly.

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates – which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing.

You know, crankiness is at the essence of all comedy.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

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.

Wonder is the basis of worship.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the ‚Not Me,‘ that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, ‚Nature.‘

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

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.

In wildness is the preservation of the world.

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.

The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God.

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

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

I thought Star Wars was too wacky for the general public.

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

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

Trying to be fascinating is an asinine position to be in.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.

When California was wild, it was the floweriest part of the continent.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

A witty saying proves nothing.

Space has always fascinated me. As a young boy looking up at the stars, I found it impossible to resist thinking what was out there and if I ever would experience space first-hand.

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.

As the poet said, ‚Only God can make a tree,‘ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

I do not believe any of the statistical claims that are made about public opinion. I don’t see why anybody does.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred.

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.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‚Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

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 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.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

Bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them.

Many readers fail to realize this, but ‚The Color Purple‘ is a theological text. It is about the reclamation of one’s original God: the earth and nature.

Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.

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.

Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.

If you look at ‚Blade Runner,‘ it’s been cut sixteen ways from Sunday, and there are all kinds of different versions of it.

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.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.

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 nature of the human mind is such that unless it is stimulated by images of things acting upon it from without, all remembrance of them passes easily away.