#nature

Symbols, for me and for many, of freedom, whether it be from the prison of over-dense communities and the close confines of human relationships, from the less complex incarceration of office walls and hours, or simply freedom from the prison of adult life and an escape into the forgotten world of childhood, of the individual or the race. For I am convinced that man has suffered in his separation from the soil and from the other living creatures of the world; the evolution of his intellect has outrun his needs as an animal, and as yet he must still, for security, look long at some portion of the earth as it was before he tampered with it. ↗

— Gavin Maxwell

#nature #scotland #freedom

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. ↗

— George Eliot

#human-nature #funny

I have discovered that the world over, unusual weather prevails at all times of the year. ↗

— Edgar Rice Burroughs

#humor #weather #humor

... the vintage of history is forever repeating ~ same old vines, same old wines! ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#goethe #history #history-of-mankind #history-repeating-itself #human-nature

One morning as I closed the cyclone-fence gate / to begin a slow drift / down to the cookhouse on foot / (because my truck wheels were glued / in deep mud once again), / I walked straight into / the waiting non-arms of a snake, / its tan beaded-bag skin / studded with black diamonds. Up it coiled to speak to me a eye level. / Imagine! that sleek finger / rising out of the land's palm / and coiling faster than a Hindu rope. / The thrill of a bull snake / startled in the morning / when the mesas lie pooled / in a custard of light / kept me bright than ball lightning all day. Praise leapt first to mind / before flight or danger, / praise that knows no half-truth, and pardons all. ↗

— Diane Ackerman

#nature #snakes #imagination

We must imagine our lives well. We must engage our conscience. Conscience is the voice of God in the nature and heart of man. ↗

— Laura Kasischke

#god #heart #imagine #lives #nature

To find not only that this bedlam of color was true but that the pictures were pale and inaccurate translations, was to me startling. I can't even imagine the forest colors when I am not seeing them. I wondered whether constant association could cause inattention, and asked a native New Hampshire woman about it. She said that autumn never failed to amaze her; to elate. 'It is a glory,' she said, 'and can't be remembered, so that it always comes as a surprise. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#imagination

When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly inter-twined branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of the place, and the awful gloom of this doomed cavern then strike you with the presence of a deity? ↗

— Luci Anneu Sèneca

#inspiration #nature #trees #inspirational

We don't stop hiking because we grow old - we grow old because we stop hiking ↗

— Finis Mitchell

#life #nature #inspirational

A high degree of intelligence yes in no other creature in the natural world. That's why nature shuns us and why we subconsciously hate her and seek to obliterate her. High intelligence leads to the concept of progress. Progress leads to nuclear weapons, bio-engineering chaos and ultimately to annihilation. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#intelligence