Humans And Nature Quotes

The tiger is a bellwether
one of thousands of similarly vulnerable species, which are, at once, casualties of our success and symbols of our failure. The current moment is proof of our struggle to evolve (perhaps "mature" is a better word) beyond outmoded fears and attitudes, to face the fact that nature is neither our enemy nor our slave. ~ John Vaillant

Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to live. Select a vocation that helps realise your ideal of compassion. ~ Nhat Hanh

We have made our mark on the world, but we have really done nothing that the trees and creeping plants, ice and erosion, cannot remove in a fairly short time. ~ John Steinbeck

The book recounts stories from my half-century of experience in the world of architecture and my journey of discovery of the importance of considering humans and nature as part of any project. It's illustrated with my own watercolors I hope it will inspire the next generation of architects to design places we can all enjoy. ~ Sim Van Der Ryn

Humans are great optimizers. We look at everything around us, whether a cow, a house, or a share portfolio, and ask ourselves how we can manage it to get the best return. Our modus operandi is to break the things we're managing down into its component parts and understand how each part functions and what inputs will yield the greatest outputs . . . [but] the more you optimize elements of a complex system of humans and nature for some specific goal, the more you diminish that system's resilience. A drive for efficient optimal state outcome has the effect of making the total system more vulnerable to shocks and disturbances. ~ Stanley McChrystal

Many cherish the idea that a photograph is an exact presentment of nature, and accept without question the paradox that a photograph cannot lie. Actually there never was a more unmitigated liar. ~ Walter J. Phillips

She's a mixed-breed and not the least bit aggressive.
She decided long ago she wanted to be a pet dog, not a guard dog. I think that's another reason why that man wanted to get rid of her. I've never understood all this fascination with aggressiveness. It's like an epidemic. People don't just want aggressive dogs, they want to be aggressive themselves. ~ Sonal Panse

Virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species - back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire - has been ethically ambiguous. ~ Carl Sagan

It is resignation and contentment that are best calculated to lead us safely through life. Whoever has not sufficient power to endure privations, and even suffering, can never feel that he is armor proof against painful emotions,
nay, he must attribute to himself, or at least to the morbid sensitiveness of his nature, every disagreeable feeling he may suffer. ~ Wilhelm Von Humboldt

We humans are really good at forming groups to compete, and then dissolving the groups and reforming them along different lines to compete in a different way. ~ Jonathan Haidt

It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism
Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique concrete
opposes. But instead of bringing art and reality closer together, the new movement merely thins out the distinction. ~ Igor Stravinsky

This is human nature: to find a morality that is comfortable and convenient and let it suffice for holiness. But it is not. So you ride your bike to work, or drive a hybrid car - but ~ John Eldredge

To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of, but to add a few yards of land to your field, to plant an orchard, or enlarge a dwelling, to always be making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world and sometimes intervene between itself and heaven. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

I worry that I upset people without meaning to. I worry that I don't check my privilege enough. I worry about people being imprisoned for crimes they didn't do. I worry about human rights abuses. I worry about prejudice and politics and pollution and the world my children, and their entire generation, are inheriting from us. I worry about all of the species going extinct because of humans. I worry about my carbon footprint. I worry about all of the pain in the world that I am not actively able to stop. I worry about how much I'm wrapped up in myself, which makes me even more wrapped up in myself. ~ Matt Haig

If in heroic conduct, whether of warriors, philosophers or scientists, we see what is of essential nature, then we know that all heroism groups itself around a supreme value. This has always been the idea of honour, spiritual and mental. But the idea of honour, like its corporeal representatives, was involved in a war of soul and spirit against the values represented by alien races or the offspring of racial chaos. ~ Alfred Rosenberg

A knowledge of brain science will provide one of the major foundations of the new age to come. That knowledge will spawn cures for disease, new machines based on brain function, further insights into our nature and how we know. ~ Gerald Edelman

If Pelagius had solved the problem of sin and human responsibility by arguing that humans are perfectly capable of doing whatever they want, Augustine solved it by saying that humans deliberately act against the good ideals that they don't know and are selfish, greedy, lustful, stubborn, and proud. In his words, people are non posse non peccare, "not able not to sin," because even the good things that we do are not out of love for God but for some lesser purpose. ~ Justin S. Holcomb

After a harassing warfare, prolonged by the nature of the country and by the difficulty of procuring subsistence, the Indians were entirely defeated, and the disaffected band dispersed or destroyed. The result has been creditable to the troops engaged in the service. Severe as is the lesson to the Indians, it was rendered necessary by their unprovoked aggressions, and it is to be hoped that its impression will be permanent and salutary. ~ Andrew Jackson

God is one, but he has innumerable forms. He is the creator of all and He himself takes the human form. ~ Guru Nanak

High Romanticism shows you nature in all its harsh and lovely metamorphoses. Flood, fire and quake fling us back to the primal struggle for survival and reveal our gross dependency on mammoth, still mysterious forces. ~ Camille Paglia

Tautologies are instantaneous, everything is revealed at once. Eternity can actually be experienced. Once you set up a closed circuit, you just keep spinnin' 'round and 'round in there. That's the nature of tautologies. No interruptions like with dreams. It's like the encyclopedia wand. ~ Haruki Murakami

I Live Not in Myself

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture: I can see
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be
A link reluctant in a fleshy chain,
Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee,
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. ~ George Gordon Byron

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life. ~ Joseph Conrad

Up past the old lime kiln
built into the side of a hill
we take a hard right at a clearing
lined by brittle apple trees
still willing to bear fruit.

I snap sticks beneath my feet
and steal pictures of the view
while you reach for something
sweet, as much as it bows
to you. ~ Kristen Henderson

We felt so small with the city lights stretching forever below us, and we yelled at the top of our lungs because we were just these small humans but we felt more longing than could ever fit inside us. ~ Nina LaCour

While infrasonic vibrations at around 6 hertz may influence the brain and produce various effects in humans, it seems that there must be other types of energy, or other frequencies, to explain phenomena that were noted to have occurred at the Great Pyramid more than one hundred years ago. Sir William Siemens, an Anglo-German engineer, metallurgist, and inventor, experienced a strange energy phenomenon at the Great Pyramid when an Arab guide called his attention to the fact that, while standing on the summit of the pyramid with hands outstretched, he could hear a sharp ringing noise. Raising his index finger, Siemens felt a prickling sensation.
Later on, while drinking out of a wine bottle he had brought along, he experienced a slight electric shock. Feeling that some further observations were in order, Siemens then wrapped a moistened newspaper around the bottle, converting it into a Leyden jar. After he held it above his head for a while, this improvised Leyden jar became charged with electricity to such an extent that sparks began to fly. Reportedly, Siemens' Arab guides were not too happy with their tourist's experiment and accused him of practicing witchcraft. Peter Tompkins wrote, "One of the guides tried to seize Siemens' companion, but Siemens lowered the bottle towards him and gave the Arab such a jolt that he was knocked senseless to the ground. Recovering, the guide scrambled to his feet and took off down the Pyramid, crying loudly. ~ Christopher Dunn

The new formula in physics describes humans as paradoxical beings who have two complementary aspects: They can show properties of Newtonian objects and also infinite fields of consciousness. ~ Stanislav Grof

What empowerment is all about [is] finding something which infuses you with a sense of mission, with a passion for your life's work. I don't believe there is one path for women or one nature to fulfill. Real fulfillment, real empowerment is often different than we imagine and better than we plan. ~ Elizabeth Dole

One of the signs (you) displayed (said): QUESTION AUTHORITY. Comments or slogans of this nature cannot and will not be condoned. ~ C.L. Wilson

The person who wishes to attain human perfection should study logic first, next mathematics, then physics, and, lastly, metaphysics. ~ Maimonides

I always respect right off the bat because we are human, but then over time you learn who the person truly is, just like they learn about you. Hope it works out really well, and you hope that builds a stronger connection over time. You can't be friends with everybody. ~ Billie Jean King

Your life is your artwork and you are to paint life as a beautiful struggle. With your brush, paint the colors of joy in vibrant shades of red. Color the sky a baby blue, a color as free as your heart. With rich, earthy tones shade the valleys that run deep into the ground where heaven meets hell. Life is as chaotic as the color black, a blend of all colors, and this makes life a beautiful struggle. Be grateful for the green that makes up the beautiful canvas, for nature has given you everything that you need to be happy. Most of all, don't ever feel the need to fill the entire canvas with paint, for the places left blank are the most honest expressions of who you are. ~ Forrest Curran

Your religion doesn't determine your value here on earth, maybe in the next one; but it is your growth and relevance to your fellow humans that does. ~ Lebo Grand

Empathy is really important.. Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our full potential. ~ Jane Goodall

It is often said it is no matter what a man believes if he is only sincere. This is true of all minor truths, and false of all truths whose nature it is to fashion a man's life. It will make no difference in a man's harvest whether he thinks turnips have more saccharine matter than potatoes
whether corn is better than wheat. But let the man sincerely believe that seed planted without ploughing is as good as with, that January is as favorable for seed sowing as April, and that cockle seed will produce as good a harvest as wheat, and will it make no difference? ~ Henry Ward Beecher

My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Nature meant for me a wife, a silly harmless household Dove, fond without art; and kind without deceit. ~ John Dryden

The white man is not inherently evil, but America's racist society influences him to act evilly. The society has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings. ~ Malcolm X

Nature is not personal. She is the compound of all these processes which move through the universe to effect the results we know as Life and of all the ordinances which govern that universe and that make Life continuous. She is no more the Hebrew's Jehovah than she is the Physicist's Force; she is as much Providence as she is Electricity; she is not the Great Pattern any more than she is the Blind Chance. ~ Luther Burbank