Quotes on Nature

In athletics there's always been a willingness to cheat if it looks like you're not cheating. I think that's just a quirk of human nature.

Author: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

There was a Republican majority of the Senate, and it tempered the nature of the nominations being made.

Author: Spencer Abraham

Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.

Author: John Acton

When I died my hair red the first time, I felt as if it was what nature intended. I have been accused of being a bit of a spitfire, so in that way, I absolutely live up to the stereotype. The red hair suits my personality. I was a terrible blonde!

Author: Amy Adams

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.

Author: Ansel Adams

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.

Author: Henry Adams

The greatest growth often comes from the deepest roots.

Author: Sophia Jones

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.

Author: John Adams

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

Author: Samuel Adams

In the end of five years I made supplication to the king to go out of this land, desiring to see my poor wife and children according to conscience and nature.

Author: Will Adams

To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.

Author: Joseph Addison

There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.

Author: Joseph Addison

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.

Author: Joseph Addison

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

Author: Joseph Addison

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

Author: Joseph Addison

The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

Author: Joseph Addison

The science of the mind can only have for its proper goal the understanding of human nature by every human being, and through its use, brings peace to every human soul.

Author: Alfred Adler

Nature is something outside our body, but the mind is within us.

Author: Bhumibol Adulyadej

Study nature, not books.

Author: Louis Agassiz

The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind. You should never trifle with Nature.

Author: Louis Agassiz

When I first began to combine letters other than Hebrew, I read every book in German that came my way, and from these I certainly received according to the nature of my soul.

Author: Shmuel Agnon

I'm experimental by nature... always exploring my creativity.

Author: Christina Aguilera

Global equations undergo changes, this is their nature.

Author: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Abstraction is real, probably more real than nature.

Author: Josef Albers

We must always take from nature what we paint and always choose the most beautiful things.

Author: Leon Alberti

Gossip is nature's telephone.

Author: Sholom Aleichem

Nature never makes any blunders, when she makes a fool she means it.

Author: Archibald Alexander

The strongest trees grow roots deep in the darkness before reaching for the light above.

Author: Sophia Nguyen

While we are under the tyranny of Priests, it will ever be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.

Author: Ethan Allen

The nature of the Catilinarian conspiracy was bad and bloody.

Author: Florence Allen

The more intense the nature of a man, the more readily will he find meditation, and the more successfully will he practice it.

Author: James Allen

I am two with nature.

Author: Woody Allen

It is human nature that rules the world, not governments and regimes.

Author: Svetlana Alliluyeva

I am one of those people who are blessed, or cursed, with a nature which has to interfere. If I see a thing that needs doing I do it.

Author: Margery Allingham

The relative property of the Son is to be begotten, that is, so to proceed from the Father as to be a participant of the same essence and perfectly carry on the Father's nature.

Author: William Ames

In the exercise of God's efficiency, the decree of God comes first. This manner of working is the most perfect of all and notably agrees with the divine nature.

Author: William Ames

Everyone who understands the nature of God rightly necessarily knows that God is to be believed and hoped in, that he is to be loved and called upon, and to be heard in all things.

Author: William Ames

In nature there are few sharp lines.

Author: A. Ammons

I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.

Author: A. Ammons

Comedy is second nature for me.

Author: Anthony Anderson

All of my work is based on nature. I grew up in a rural environment and living in the Bay Area allows for immediate access to wonderful natural environs. Basically nature is my Genus Loci, or the place where my spirit resides.

Author: Judith Anderson

I suppose I might insist on making issues of things. But that is not my nature, and I always bear in ming that my mission is to leave behind me the kind of impression that will make it easier for those who follow.

Author: Marian Anderson

None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.

Author: Marian Anderson

Nothing. We're all friends and friendly. So when the cameras go down, depending on the mood or the nature of the material we're dealing with, there's usually a kind of a prevailing light attitude that's floating around.

Author: Richard Anderson

When you look at Japanese traditional architecture, you have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature. You can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with nature - this very unique to Japan.

Author: Tadao Ando

We cannot wait for governments to do it all. Globalization operates on Internet time. Governments tend to be slow moving by nature, because they have to build political support for every step.

Author: Kofi Annan

You are a pest, by the very nature of that camera in your hand.

Author: Princess Anne

When man becomes reconciled to nature, when space becomes his true background, these words and concepts will have lost their meaning, and we will no longer have to use them.

Author: Michelangelo Antonioni

A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.

Author: Guillaume Apollinaire

The plastic virtues: purity, unity, and truth, keep nature in subjection.

Author: Guillaume Apollinaire

We know that the nature of genius is to provide idiots with ideas twenty years later.

Author: Louis Aragon

Let who will boast their courage in the field, I find but little safety from my shield, Nature's, not honour's law we must obey: This made me cast my useless shield away.

Author: Archilochus

Such fire was not by water to be drowned, nor he his nature changed by changing ground.

Author: Ludovico Ariosto

Nature made him, and then broke the mold.

Author: Ludovico Ariosto

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

Author: Aristotle

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

Author: Aristotle

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

Author: Aristotle

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

Author: Aristotle

Man is by nature a political animal.

Author: Aristotle

Nature does nothing in vain.

Author: Aristotle

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.

Author: Aristotle

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Author: Aristotle

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Author: Karen Armstrong

I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul... we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

Author: Neil Armstrong

The rehabilitation of order as a universal principle, however, suggested at the same time that orderliness by itself is not sufficient to account for the nature of organized systems in general or for those created by man in particular.

Author: Rudolf Arnheim

Modem science, then, maintains on the one hand that nature, both organic and inorganic, strives towards a state of order and that man's actions are governed by the same tendency.

Author: Rudolf Arnheim

Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play, Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.

Author: Matthew Arnold

We've got to understand that the whole nature of the way American democracy guards its freedom has been changed.

Author: John Ashcroft

To insult someone we call him "bestial." For deliberate cruelty and nature, "human" might be the greater insult.

Author: Isaac Asimov

The capacity to suffer varies more than anything that I have observed in human nature.

Author: Margot Asquith

If journalism is good, it is controversial, by its nature.

Author: Julian Assange

None of God's Creatures absolutely consider'd are in their own Nature Contemptible; the meanest Fly, the poorest Insect has its Use and Vertue.

Author: Mary Astell

We still have a tradition certainly in English television; it's faded a bit in the last five years, but we still have a tradition where the important thing is the quality and the challenging nature of the programming.

Author: Rowan Atkinson

My illness has taught me something about the nature of humanity, love, brotherhood and relationships that I never understood, and probably never would have. So, from that standpoint, there is some truth and good in everything.

Author: Lee Atwater

As I grew up I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with Nature.

Author: John Audubon

Duruing all these years there existed within me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks.

Author: John Audubon

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Author: Saint Augustine

Custom is second nature.

Author: Saint Augustine

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

Author: Marcus Aurelius

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

Author: Marcus Aurelius

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

Author: Marcus Aurelius

Hidden nature is secret God.

Author: Sri Aurobindo

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

Author: Jane Austen

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.

Author: Alfred Austin

Nature is my springboard. From her I get my initial impetus. I have tried to relate the visible drama of mountains, trees, and bleached fields with the fantasy of wind blowing and changing colors and forms.

Author: Milton Avery

Look out into the universe and contemplate the glory of God. Observe the stars, millions of them, twinkling in the night sky, all with a message of unity, part of the very nature of God.

Author: Sai Baba

It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line.

Author: Ibrahim Babangida

To punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.

Author: Thomas Babington

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Author: Francis Bacon

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

Author: Francis Bacon

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

Author: Francis Bacon

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

Author: Francis Bacon

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

Author: Francis Bacon

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

Author: Walter Bagehot

The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.

Author: Walter Bagehot

It is a sign of a dull nature to occupy oneself deeply in matters that concern the body; for instance, to be over much occupied about exercise, about eating and drinking, about easing oneself, about sexual intercourse.

Author: David Bailey

The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.

Author: Mikhail Bakunin

Pythagoras took the next important step by subordinating the mere matter of nature to its essential principle of form and order, identifying the latter with reason or the soul.

Author: James Baldwin

A widespread taste for pornography means that nature is alerting us to some threat of extinction.

Author: J. Ballard

Disease is the retribution of outraged Nature.

Author: Hosea Ballou

What is art? Nature concentrated.

Author: Honore Balzac

I actually think that secrets are just a part of human nature and that everybody should have some.

Author: Elizabeth Banks

Living in Cambridge, with nature and everything, it's so clean.

Author: Syd Barrett

To eat steak rare... represents both a nature and a morality.

Author: Roland Barthes

Poetry is but another form of inquiry into the nature of phenomena, using with its own unique procedures and tools.

Author: John Barton

The parental, and filial affections seem to be as ardent, their sensibility and attachment, as active and faithful, as those observed to be in human nature.

Author: William Bartram

The attention of a traveller, should be particularly turned, in the first place, to the various works of Nature, to mark the distinctions of the climates he may explore, and to offer such useful observations on the different productions as may occur.

Author: William Bartram

But epistemology is always and inevitably personal. The point of the probe is always in the heart of the explorer: What is my answer to the question of the nature of knowing?

Author: Gregory Bateson

If you haven't had at least a slight poetic crack in the heart, you have been cheated by nature.

Author: Phyllis Battelle

I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial.

Author: Charles Baudelaire

Nature is a temple in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. Man approaches it through forests of symbols, which observe him with familiar glances.

Author: Charles Baudelaire

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

Author: Charles Baudelaire

Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.

Author: Standing Bear

Given the eclectic and constantly shifting nature of my metaphysical inclinations, I will probably never feel certain exactly what an angel is.

Author: Martha Beck

My own nature hovers between neurotic and paranoid. I've developed the habit of mentally listing things that make me optimistic about the future. I do it every day.

Author: Martha Beck

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

Author: Henry Beecher

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.

Author: Henry Beecher

To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature, study and practice.

Author: Henry Beecher

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

Author: Henry Beecher

To destroy is still the strongest instinct in nature.

Author: Max Beerbohm

It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.

Author: Max Beerbohm

Envy is human nature.

Author: Monica Bellucci

Fellini belongs to nature.

Author: Roberto Benigni

Moreover, the concern of some that moving DNA among species would breach customary breeding barriers and have profound effects on natural evolutionary processes has substantially disappeared as the science revealed that such exchanges occur in nature.

Author: Paul Berg

Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.

Author: John Berger

The insufferable arrogance of human beings to think that Nature was made solely for their benefit, as if it was conceivable that the sun had been set afire merely to ripen men's apples and head their cabbages.

Author: Cyrano Bergerac

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

Author: Ingrid Bergman

It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator's skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen.

Author: William Bernbach

The ground we walk on, the plants and creatures, the clouds above constantly dissolving into new formations - each gift of nature possessing its own radiant energy, bound together by cosmic harmony.

Author: Ruth Bernhard

Nothing is given to man on earth - struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible - the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen.

Author: Andrew Bernstein

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

Author: Wendell Berry

The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.

Author: Henry Beston

If we wish our nature to be free and joyous, we should bring our activities into same order.

Author: Vinoba Bhave

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Author: Ambrose Bierce

While day by day the overzealous student stores up facts for future use, he who has learned to trust nature finds need for ever fewer external directions. He will discard formula after formula, until he reaches the conclusion: Let nature take its course.

Author: Larry Bird

There are always, of course, job losses of a cyclical nature in a recession.

Author: Tim Bishop

Compared to America or Europe, God isn't a big part of our lives here. I don't know anyone here who goes to church when he's had a rough divorce or is going through depression. We go out into nature instead.

Author: Bjork

It's incredible how nature sets females up to take care of people, and yet it is tricky for them to take care of themselves.

Author: Bjork

Nature is our chapel.

Author: Bjork

What the Court really has refused to recognize is the fundamental interest all individuals have in controlling the nature of their intimate associations.

Author: Harry Blackmun

Don't just exist, stand out; like a wildflower in a field of grass.

Author: Melanie Mitchell

Action, so to speak, is the genius of nature.

Author: Robert Blair

Surfing is such an amazing concept. You're taking on Nature with a little stick and saying, 'I'm gonna ride you!' And a lot of times Nature says, 'No you're not!' and crashes you to the bottom.

Author: Jolene Blalock

It is on the acceptance or rejection of the theory of the Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate Essence, that mainly rests the belief or unbelief in the existence around us of other conscious beings besides the Spirits of the Dead.

Author: H. Blavatsky

The ship was masted according to the proportion of the navy; but on my application the masts were shortened, as I thought them too much for her, considering the nature of the voyage.

Author: William Bligh

Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look, The fields his study, Nature was his book.

Author: Robert Bloomfield

Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature.

Author: Bodhidharma

People who don't see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are lairs and fools.

Author: Bodhidharma

To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn't apparent because it's shrouded by sensation and delusion.

Author: Bodhidharma

To find a Buddha all you have to do is see your nature.

Author: Bodhidharma