Nature quotations
Mackay Charles 1814-1889
There is no such thing as death,
In nature, nothing dies:
From each sad moment of decay
Some forms of life arise.
Maine Sir Henry 1822-1888
Village Communities
Except the bind forces of Nature, nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin.
Marlowe Christopher 1564-1593
Tamburlaine the Great
Nature that framed us of four elements,
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
Meredith George 1828-1909
Modern Love
‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!'
Says Nature.
Milton John 1608-1674
Of Education ‘Their Exercise'
In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out, and see her
riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.
Morley Christopher 1890-1957
It is unfair to blame man too fiercely for being pugnacious; he learned the habit from nature.
Mottoes and Slogans
(slogan, American life insurance)
Death [is] nature's way of telling you to slow down.
Newton Sir Isaac 1642-1727
Opticks
Whence is it that Nature does nothing in vain: and whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world? ... does it not appear from phenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly.
Newton Sir Isaac 1642-1727
Opticks
The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very comformable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations.
Niebuhr Reinhold 1892-1971
The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self-mastery.
Osler Sir William 1849-1919
Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings
That man can interrogate as well as observe nature, was a lesson slowly learned in his evolution.
Pascal Blaise 1623-1662
Two things control man's nature: instinct and experience.
Pei Mario 1901-1978
Good architecture lets nature in.
Pope Alexander 1688-1744
‘Epitah: Intended for Sir Isaac Newton'
Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night.
God said, Let Newton be! And all was light.
Pope Alexander 1688-1744
An Essay on Man
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, ‘Whatever IS, IS RIGHT'.
Pope Alexander 1688-1744
An Essay on Man
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks thro' Nature, up to Nature's God.
Proverbs and Sayings
Belgian
Experience is the comb that Nature gives us when are bald.
Proverbs and Sayings
French
A father is a banker provided by nature.
Proverbs and Sayings
Latin
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Proverbs and Sayings
Medieval
Habit is second nature.
Proverbs and Sayings
Medieval
Nature gives to each what is appropriate.
Proverbs and Sayings
Medieval
Nature always desires what is better.
Proverbs and Sayings
Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.
Ratner Herbert
The doctor, if he forgets he is only the assistant to nature and zealously takes over the stage, may so add to what nature is already doing well
that he actually throws the patient into shock by the vigour he adds to nature's forces.
Santayana George 1863-1952
By nature's kindly disposition, most questions which it is beyond man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Much Ado About Nothing
To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Hamlet
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet
It is our trick, nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Julius Caesar
The deep of night is crept upon our talk,
And nature must obey necessity.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
King Lear
O reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Macbeth
Yet I do fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Troilus and Cressida
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
Smith Sydney 1771-1845
Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.
Spencer Herbert 1820-1903
Social Statics
Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity ... It is a part of nature.
Swift Jonathan 1667-1745
‘On Poetry'
Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature
Lives in a state of war by nature.
Teale Edwin Way
In nature, there is less death and destruction than death and transmutation.
Tennyson Alfred Lord 1809-1892
In Memoriam
Nature, red in tooth and claw.
Turgenev Ivan 1818-1823
Fathers and Sons
Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.
Voltaire 1694-1778
Men argue, nature acts.
Westcott Edward Noyes 1846-1898
I reckon there's as much human nature in some folks as there is in others, if not more.
Whistler James McNeill 1834-1903
(to a lady reminded of his work by a ‘haze')
Yes madam, Nature is creeping up.
Whistler James McNeill 1834-1903
Nature is usually wrong.
Whistler James McNeill 1834-1903
To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.
Williams Tennessee 1911-1983
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
Wordsworth William 1770-1850
‘Lines composed ... above Tintern Abbey'
I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.
Wordsworth William 1770-1850
‘Lines composed ... above Tintern Abbey'
Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.
Young Edward 1683-1765
Night Thoughts ‘Night 1'
Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
