#dl

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#nature

It was not curiosity that killed the goose who laid the golden egg, but an insatiable greed that devoured common sense. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#common-sense #curiosity #deadly-sins #faults #gold

A child’s stories are simpler to understand because the language has not been developed to the point of high abstraction. An adult tells stories far more obtuse in nature. ↗

— John S. Savage

#nature

A few minutes after he arrived, Lee was talking to a group of astronomers eager to learn what news he could bring them, for there are few natural philosophers as frustrated as astronomers in a fog. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#nature

Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality—the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#nature

As much as I hated to admit it, I kind of looked forward to seeing him. It made no sense, but something about his infuriating nature made me forget about my other worries. Weirdly, I felt like I could relax around him. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#books #quote #nature

The infinitesimal seedlings became a forest of trees that grew courteously, correcting the distances between themselves as they shaped themselves to the promptings of available light and moisture, tempering the climate and the temperaments of the Scots, as the driest land became moist and the wettest land became dry, seedlings finding a mean between extremes, and the trees constructing a moderate zone for themselves even into what I would have called tundra, until I understood the fact that Aristotle taught, while walking in a botanic garden, that the middle is fittest to discern the extremes. ("Interim") ↗

— William S. Wilson

#extremes #middle #nature #scotland #trees

The dangerous temptation of wildlife films is that they can lull us into thinking we can get by without the original models -- that we might not need animals in the flesh. ↗

— Doug Peacock

#nature #wildlife #nature

Worldliness proposes objectives which demand no radical breach with man's fallen nature; it judges the importance of things by the present and material results; it weighs success by numbers; it covets human esteem and wants no unpopularity; it knows no truth for which it is worth suffering; it declines to be a 'fool for Christ's sake. ↗

— Iain Murray

#theology #worldliness #nature

A male frigate bird blows up a wild red pouch on his neck. He can keep it puffed up for hours. It is his way of impressing the girls. ↗

— Julie Murphy

#children-s-books #courtship #frigate-bird #mating #nature