I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.
Nothing relieves and ventilates the mind like a resolution.
When nature made the blue-bird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast.
Nature is not benevolent; Nature is just, gives pound for pound, measure for measure, makes no exceptions, never tempers her decrees with mercy, or winks at any infringement of her laws.
The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.
For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice – no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.
If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature...
It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.
Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.
I have discovered the secret of happiness – it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.
Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.
Time does not become sacred to us until we have lived it.
The atmosphere of our time is fast being cleared of the fumes and deadly gases that arose during the carboniferous age of theology.
Close scrutiny of an object in nature will nearly always yield some significant fact...
When you bait the hook with your heart, the fish always bite.
Man takes root at his feet, and at best he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage till he has established communication with the soil by the loving and magnetic touch of his soles to it.
The life of nature we must meet halfway; it is shy, withdrawn, and blends itself with a vast neutral background. We must be initiated; it is an order the secrets of which are well guarded.
Oh, Spring is surely coming, Her couriers fill the air; Each morn are new arrivals, Each night her ways prepare; I scent her fragrant garments, Her foot is on the stair.
I go to books and to nature as the bee goes to a flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.