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Quote Essential
Inspiring quotes from naturalists, writers, philosophers, and thinkers
From Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“And, in
fine, the ancient precept, ‘Know thyself,’ and the modern precept, ‘Study
nature,’ become at last one maxim.”
“The
creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”
"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail."
"Self-trust is the first secret of success."
"He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear."
"There
comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that
envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for
better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good,
no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on
that plot of ground which is given him to till."
“The
louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons. “
“Finish
each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between
the two. This you cannot do without temperance.”
"Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it."
"If a man carefully examines his thoughts, he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead."
"The one
thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. "
"Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience."
"With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do...Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts everything you said today."
"I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all."
"Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain."
"Do not be too timid and squeamish...All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better."
"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is
always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties
arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of
action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier
needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."
“Finish
each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and
absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new
day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered
with your old nonsense.”
"As soon as there is life, there is danger."
"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires...courage."
“People
with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never."
“In the
woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained
glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the
western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
From Henry David Thoreau:
“It is the living spirit of the tree, not its
spirit of turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals my cuts. It is as
immortal as I am, and perchance will go as high a heaven, there to tower above
me still.“
"It is something to be able to paint a
particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects
beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere
and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality
of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
"The man is blessed who every day is permitted
to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while
revolutions vex the world.”
"To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of
these October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or
November air. The out-door air and exercise which the walker gets give a
different tone to his palate, and he craves a fruit which the sedentary would
call harsh and crabbed. They must be eaten in the fields, when your system is
all aglow with exercise, when the frosty weather nips your fingers, the wind
rattles the bare boughs or rustles the few remaining leaves, and the jay is
heard screaming around. What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet.
Some of these apples might be labeled, ‘To be eaten in the wind.’ "
“I know of no more encouraging fact than the
unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”
“We must walk consciously only part way toward
our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.”
"October is the month of painted leaves. Their
rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself
acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting.
October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight."
“To be a philosopher is not merely to have
subtle thoughts, not even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live
according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and
trust."
“As every season seems best to us in its turn,
so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the
realization of the Golden Age."
“Many men go fishing all of their lives without
knowing that it is not fish they are after.”
“However mean your life is, meet it and live it:
do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb,
like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or
friends. Things do not change, we change."
“Success
usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”
"In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high."
"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate."
"We make ourselves rich by making our wants few."
"It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes."
"Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you, know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus you may feel your pulse."
"It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves."
"Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations."
Other Quotes:
"Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes."
-Walt Whitman
"To have great poets, there must be great audiences too."
-Walt Whitman
“The
wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,
Ya-honk!
he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation:
The pert
may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer,
I find
its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.”
- Walt Whitman
"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."
-Rachel Carson
"Let Nature be your teacher."
-William Wordsworth
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth."
-Robert Frost, Two Roads
“I am
not a teacher but an awakener.”
-Robert Frost
"Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace within the storm."
-Author Unknown
"Time is
the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that
coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for
you."
- Carl Sandburg
“We
cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the
ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.“
- G. C. Lichtenberg
“When
you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, 'til it seems as if
you couldn't hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that's just the
place and time that the tide'll turn.“
-Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Autumn
is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
-Albert Camus
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find
out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity;
and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of
timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life!”
- John Muir
“I only
went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going
out, I found, was really going in.”
- John Muir
"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".
–John Muir
“Go
forth under the open sky, and list to Nature's teachings.”
-William Cullen Bryant
“Far
better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though
checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy
nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor
defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
“To know
is to know that you know nothing. That’s is the true meaning of knowledge.”
- Confucious
“The
excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking
for your joy.”
-Eudora Welty
“The
tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green
thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity . . .
and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination,
nature is imagination itself.”
-William Blake
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