#nature

For there is not a single human being, not even the primitive Negro, not even the idiot, who is so conveniently simple that his being can be explained as the sum of two or three principal elements; and to explain so complex a man as Harry by the artless division into wolf and man is a hopelessly childish attempt. Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two. His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousand and thousands. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#philosophy #soul #spirituality #truth #life

They got a manure machine in there,” Keller said. He went up to the barn and peeked through a hole between tow boards. “On wheels. It’s fun to ride sometimes, when you don’t care how you smell. ↗

— Sandra Neil Wallace

#author-sandra-neil-wallace #cows #farm-life #friendship #humor

It seems to be a law of human nature that those who live by the sea are suspicious of swimmers, just as those who live in the mountains are suspicious of mountain climbers. ↗

— Yann Martel

#humans #people #life

…nature as a whole was an exceptionally fine illustration of science. ↗

— Yann Martel

#science #life

...the laws of nature have continually all my life offended me more than anything. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#life

Truth flows from universal law, not personal views. ↗

— John Agno

#boomer-retirement #leadership-books #leadership-tips #life-signature #stress-management

Plants or animals rarely behave in an unnatural manner that’s contrary to their true makeup. Human beings are also natural beings, but at the same time, we’re conscious entities. We therefore have free will and must make the choice not merely to be part of nature, but also to follow faithfully the “laws of nature. ↗

— H.E. Davey

#laws-of-nature #meditation #natural #nature #yoga

Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of sunbeams. Press the soft blossoms against your cheek, and finger their graces of form, their delicate mutability of shape, their pliancy and freshness. Expose your face to the aerial floods that sweep the heavens, ‘inhale great draughts of space,’ wonder, wonder at the wind’s unwearied activity. Pile note on note the infinite music that flows increasingly to your soul from the tactual sonorities of a thousand branches and tumbling waters. How can the world be shriveled when this most profound, emotional sense, touch, is faithful to its service? I am sure that if a fairy bade me choose between the sense of sight and that of touch, I would not part with the warm, endearing contact of human hands… ↗

— Helen Keller

#joy #nature #optimism #sensuality #faith

The fig tree grows its flowers strangely inside out, concealed within the soft interior of the fruit. Erszébet imagines the fig's hidden fairy weight of seeds, grown in sweetness that is also a darkness. Like treasure in a cave. ↗

— Jody Shields

#fig #fruit #fruit-tree #mystery #nature

All this, grassy paddock, cows, trees - he had thought it was Nature. But now he could see that that was ignorance, or lack of imagination. It was not Nature. It was actually property. ↗

— Kate Grenville

#imagination