When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

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

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

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

Modern science says: ‚The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.‘ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

There are people who want to make men’s lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.

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

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.

Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.

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.

I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.

The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

When I was seven or eight years old, I began to read the science-fiction magazines that were brought by guests into my grandparents‘ boarding house in Waukegan, Illinois. Those were the years when Hugo Gernsback was publishing ‚Amazing Stories,‘ with vivid, appallingly imaginative cover paintings that fed my hungry imagination.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.

Even when I was a kid, everything I had was the best.

True Scouts are the best friends of animals, for from living in the woods and wilds, and practising observation and tracking, they get to know more than other people about the ways and habits of birds and animals, and therefore they understand them and are more in sympathy with them.

All nature is but art unknown to thee.

A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.

I did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

I don’t consider myself to be that credulous.

Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.

We’re a blip in the existence of the universe, and we’re constantly trying to pull each other down. Not doing things to help each other.

I walk every day, and I look at the mountains and the fields and the small city, and I say: ‚Oh my God, what a blessing.‘ Then you realise it’s important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe.

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.

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

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

Never elated when someone’s oppressed, never dejected when another one’s blessed.

We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

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

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

My dad was never married. He was kind of a rolling stone. But he was never disrespectful. At the same time, even though he had women in his life when I was a kid, there wasn’t any consistency.

Strength and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

God never meant that people were to wear clothes. He meant we were to be nude. But we were in a state of innocence. Then sin came into the human race and became a blood poisoning.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

Throughout my life, I’ve always been really close with girls and made friends with girls. And I’ve always been a really sickly, feminine person anyhow, so I thought I was gay for a while because I didn’t find any of the girls in my high school attractive at all.

Nature hates calculators.

There wasn’t much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.

The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly.

Listen with your eyes for feelings.