Quotes about nature
Here are 40 passages (out of 58) from classic authors that speak of nature, for example by Kalidasa, John Muir and Yosa Buson.
We kept the passages whose text touches on the theme, starting with those where it comes up most. Each is given word for word, with its author, its work and the reference of the passage. To browse an author’s quotes, follow the name.
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“Before thee mountains rise and rivers flow: / When thou art weary, on the mountains stay, / And when exhausted, drink the rivers' driven spray.”
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“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
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“Why need we call thee fair, O night of Spring? / Dost thou not lie between Spring evening / And dawn of Spring?”
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“Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring / Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: / The Bird of Time has but a little way / To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.”
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“Is summer’s festival only for fresh blossoms and not also for withered leaves and faded flowers?”
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“Do not linger to gather flowers to keep them, but walk on, for flowers will keep themselves blooming all your way.”
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“Fruit-laden trees bend down to earth; / The water-pregnant clouds hang low; / Good men are not puffed up by power-- / The unselfish are by nature so.”
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“I love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring. I love the blue sky, I love some people, whom one loves you know sometimes without knowing why.”
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“The life of man, if it is to be normal, should be ingrafted on the trunk of nature, grow out of it, as a branch grows out of a tree, and exist in virtue of those same laws.”
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“And now Spring beckons me with verdant hand, / And Nature’s wealth of eloquence doth win / Forth to the fragrant-bowered nectarine, / Where my dear friends abide, a careless band.”
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“This is a splendid spring day for a poet, the air is so remarkably clear, the clouds are so beautiful, and the green grass has such a sweet smell. For many years I have not felt as I do at this moment.”
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“The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing.”
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“It is different with the tree, which keeps awake through three seasons of the year, and does not get its sleep till winter comes. Winter is its time for rest, its night after the long day which is called spring, summer, and autumn.”
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“Man is but a reed, weakest in nature, but a reed which thinks.”
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“I come weary, / In search of an inn— / Ah! these wistaria flowers!”
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“Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.”
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“Gray, my good friend, is every theory, But green the golden tree of life.”
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“I loafe and invite my soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.”
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“If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory.”
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“It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
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“A swift spring-shower — and see! / A rain-coat, and umbrella, chummily / Walking and talking together.”
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“Why do we complain of Nature? she has dealt kindly with us. Life is long enough, if you know how to use it.”
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“Who has seen the wind? / Neither I nor you: / But when the leaves hang trembling / The wind is passing thro'.”
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“To be born in a duck’s nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan’s egg.”
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“Love is silent; poesy alone can speak for it. Or rather love itself is nothing but the highest poetry of nature.”
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“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.”
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“To run o’er better waters hoists its sail The little vessel of my genius now, That leaves behind itself a sea so cruel;”
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“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
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“Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth / The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
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“How freely one drinks in the air, how quickly the limbs move, how strong is the whole man, clasped in the fresh breath of spring!”
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“A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart.”
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“He prayeth well, who loveth well / Both man and bird and beast. / He prayeth best, who loveth best / All things both great and small.”
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“As it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.”
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“To-day the spring sun rests upon the world like the eye of a mother, and shines warm upon every heart, the wicked as well as the good.”
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“'Twas in the beauteous month of May, / When all the flowers were springing, / That first within my bosom / I heard love’s echo ringing.”
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“Forgot may be the lowly bed / From which these darling flowerets spring, / Still let a kindly dew be shed, / Upon their early nurturing.”
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“Heart, my heart, oh, be not shaken! / Bravely bear thy fate. Once more / Shall the coming Spring restore / What the Winter rude hath taken.”
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“And when the people were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.”
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“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.”
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“Love is like a tree; it sprouts forth of itself, sends its roots out deeply through our whole being, and often continues to flourish greenly over a heart in ruins.”