#na

Exactly what the powers of hell feed on: the best instincts in man. ↗

— Philip K. Dick

#hell #human-nature #instinct #nature

We may understand again, therefore, from this picture, that God's purpose in the cross of Jesus Christ was two-fold: first that we might be forgiven, being saved from sin's penalty because Christ died for us, and secondly, that we might be delivered from sin's power, because this old sinful nature, called the flesh, died with Him. ↗

— Major W. Ian Thomas

#deliverance #sin-nature #nature

There were mountains; there were valleys; there were streams. She climbed the mountains; roamed the valleys; sat on the banks of streams.....when, from the mountain-top, she beheld, far off, across the Sea of Marmara the plains of Greece, and made out (her eyes were admirable) the Acropolis with a white streak or two which must, she thought, be the Parthenon, her soul expanded with her eyeballs, and she prayed she might share the majesty of the hills, know the serenity of the plains, etc. etc., as all such believers do. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#travel #vision #nature

Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces." Essay on the Biological Sciences, in: Good Reading (1958) ↗

— Rachel Carson

#humanity #life #mankind #nature #survival

The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive. ↗

— Niccolò Machiavelli

#nature

It is something like the way dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have knowledge of. ↗

— Bram Stoker

#human-nature #selfishness #nature

National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#astronomy #conceit #earth #folly #human-nature

Man has one name, and many more than two natures. But the essential two are these: that he shall strive to impose order on chaos, and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos… A third element of man’s nature is this: that he shall not understand what he is doing. ↗

— John Brunner

#human-nature #order #pattern #understanding #nature

I wanted to give you a victory. But by their essential nature triumphs can’t be given. ↗

— Lois McMaster Bujold

#give #giving #nature #nature-of-things #triumph

I am grateful for the magic, mystery and majesty of nature – my loyal friend and companion – always there, welcoming and waiting for me to come; to be healed. ↗

— Tom North

#magic #mystery #nature #nature