Natural Rhythms Quotes

On the mountains mistakes are fatal. In politics, mistakes are wounding emotionally, but you recover. Personally, wilderness helps me get back in touch with natural rhythms, helps me reflect and, in the process, restore my creativity. ~ Mark Udall

In the end, we all want a wife. But the home has become increasingly invaded by the ethos of work, work, work, with twin sets of external clocks imposed on a household's natural rhythms. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh

Scientists and shamans alike know that all of life is woven into a web of infinite connections, contributing to the larger whole in a system that is complex beyond our imagining. When we sit quietly at the edge of a lake, or hike through a wildflower-strewn meadow, or walk through a cool, dark forest, we quickly become aware of our unity with the natural world. We fall back into natural rhythms--rhythms we are no longer in synch with as a result of living by the clock and spending much of our time in man-made spaces lit by electricity. Nature has a way of recalibrating us and helping us gain a new perspective on our stressors so that they seem less overwhelming. ~ Carl Greer

The recognition that human beings are specifically and deliberately responsible for whatever aberrances farm animals may embody, that their discordances reflect our, not their, primary disruption of natural rhythms, and that we owe them more rather than less for having stripped them of their birthright and earthrights has not entered into the environmentalist discussions that I've encountered to date. ~ Karen Davis

One of the reasons there may be a trend toward moving out of the cities, again, it may be conscious or it may be unconscious, but it is a desire to connect more with nature. And with the natural rhythms. We [people] need that! We've been missing it. ~ Shakti Gawain

Holidays and vacations can help to balance activity with contemplation, haste with more natural rhythms, noise with the heralding silence of peace. ~ Pope John Paul II

The wild gatecrashes our civilised domains, and the domesticated escapes and runs riot. Weeds vividly demonstrate that natural life - and the course of evolution itself - refuse to be constrained by our cultural concepts. In doing so they make us look closely at the very idea of a divided creation. ~ Richard Mabey

The only institution in the Sicilian conscience that really counts is the family; counts, that is to say, more as a dramatic juridical contract or bond than as a natural association based on affection. The family is the Sicilians' State. The State, as it is for us, is extraneous to them, merely a de facto entity based on force; an entity imposing taxes, military service, war, police. Within the family institution the Sicilian can cross the frontier of his own natural tragic solitude and fit into a communal life where relationships are governed by hair-splitting contractual ties. To ask him to cross the frontier between family and State would be too much. In imagination he may be carried away by the idea of the State and may even rise to being Prime Minister; but the precise and definite code of his rights and duties will remain within the family, whence the step towards victorious solitude is shorter. ~ Leonardo Sciascia

Although it is tempting to think of these natural landscapes as reflecting a stability in climactic and geologic forces, long periods of climactic and geophysical stability actually result in a rundown of the energy available to ecosystems and people. Geologically young regions with recent mountain building and volcanism tend to be much more biologically productive and have supported large populations of people despite their vulnerability to natural disasters. Geologically old regions (like most of Australia) tend to have low biological productivity and supported fewer people. ~ David Holmgren

But still, it looked completely natural, as if we had been kissing at the ends of sentences for ages, while the rest of the world was still hung up on punctuation. ~ Jodi Picoult

Mr. Stone is a jackass."
That was Alex's greeting when he found me in the hall Friday afternoon.
"Probably," I agreed, levering myself out of the corner where I'd been waiting, on nervous Hannanda alert, for him to show up. "But I don't think he can help it."
"Generous of you." Alex swung his backpack from his left shoulder to his right, then, like it was the most natural thing in the world, pulled mine out of my hand. I was too surprised to stop him. "Allons-y."
We turned a few heads as we went. I would have happily met him a block away from school, but he'd preempted my cowardice, sliding a note into my locker that morning. Front hall, 3:15. I ignored the stares as Alex held the big front door open for me, my heavily inked bag dangling from his wrist. I figured any speculation would last only as long as it would take for us to hit the street in front of the school. By then, at least one "Wait. Wait. Alex Bainbridge left with Freddy Krueger?" would have been met with "Yeah. He's tutoring her in French. Winslow's making him. ~ Melissa Jensen

If conquest constitutes a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them ~ Karl Marx

Courageous leaders face unpleasant and even devastating situations with equanimity, then act firmly to bring good from trouble, even if their action is unpopular. Leadership always faces natural human inertia and opposition. But courage follows through with a task until it is done. ~ J. Oswald Sanders

Holy Moses, if it's his natural scent, then he needs to bottle that spicy fragrance up, call it Orgasm, and sell it to the masses. ~ Elle Kennedy

You cannot find it anywhere, because it is located inside you ... happiness is your natural state. ~ Russell Simmons

People are meant to go through life two by two. 'Tain't natural to be lonesome. ~ Thornton Wilder

The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading, and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. ~ Adam Smith

All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species. ~ John W. Gardner

The natural elements in the forests, mountains, deserts and large bodies of water, help shield you from the thought forms and auras of other human beings. ~ Frederick Lenz

But neither could compare with the gargantuan natural edifice that was the mountain upon which Nachtstürm Castle rose. It was a mountain made of the darkness between two lightning bolts. It was made less of earth than Stygian frost. Whole towns fell away as they ascended, as though the ranks of black and frowning conifers waged war against the humans below. Even the path – rather narrow and rarely straight – seemed less made by centuries of pilgrim feet and more by the trace of some careless demon's claw.

It was, in fact, perfect. ~ Emily C.A. Snyder

We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become. ~ E. O. Wilson

It is only in the CREATION that all the ideas and concepts of the word of God can come together. The Creation speaks a universal language that does not depend on any human speech or language. It is an eternal 'original copy' that all men can read. It cannot be faked or counterfeited. It cannot be lost or changed. It cannot be kept secret. It does not depend on man deciding whether to publish it or not. It publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all the nations, and all the worlds. This natural word of God reveals to us all that man needs to know of God. ~ Thomas Paine

Destroy it. There may be a redistribution of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as the old. ~ Will Durant

What we call "the laws of nature" merely reflect the normal way in which God sustains or governs the natural world. Perhaps the most wicked concept that has captured the minds of modern people is the belief that the universe operates by chance. That is the nadir of foolishness. Elsewhere, I have written more extensively on the scientific impossibility of assigning power to chance, because chance is simply a word that describes mathematical possibilities.* Chance is not a thing. It has no power. It cannot do anything, and therefore it cannot influence anything, yet some have taken the word chance, which has no power, and diabolically used it as a replacement for the concept of God. But the truth, as the Bible makes clear, is that nothing happens by chance and that all things are under the sovereign government of God, which is exceedingly comforting to the Christian who understands it. ~ R.C. Sproul

My true belief about Rock 'n' Roll
and there have been a lot of phrases attributed to me over the years
is this: I believe this kind of music is demonic ... A lot of the beats in music today are taken from voodoo, from the voodoo drums. If you study music in rhythms, like I have, you'll see that is true. I believe that kind of music is driving people from Christ. It is contagious ~ Little Richard

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the Soul, ~ Nicolas Malebranche

I wouldn't say I've changed my mind. I changed some of my natural habits, some of my natural character. ~ Kurt Masur

Man is/the symbol-using (symbol making, symbol-misusing) animal/inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative)/separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making/goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order)/and rotten with perfection. ~ Kenneth Burke

Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again. ~ Mike Myers

Seek and see beauty in the watery world. ~ Fennel Hudson

Great sex is a natural drug. ~ Toba Beta

Though the natural weakness of her body hinders her from doing what men can perform, she has a mind as valiant and as active for the good of her country as the best of us. - Plutarch ~ Stephanie Dray

I have the disadvantage of not being sociable. Wall Street men are fond of company and sport. A man makes one hundred thousand dollars there and immediately buys a yacht, begins to race fast horses, and becomes a sport generally. My tastes lie in a different direction. When business hours are over I go home and spend the remainder of the day with my wife, my children, and books of my library. Every man has natural inclinations of his own. Mine are domestic. They are not calculated to make me particularly popular in Wall Street, and I cannot help that. ~ Jay Gould

Cyanide," I explained.
"You can't kill him with that." Curran grimaced.
"It's not for him. It's for me."
They stared at me.
"People were dying," I said. "He was laughing, and all I could do was to sit tight and be safe."
Curran growled. "You think it's easy for me?"
"No. But you're used to it. You have experience with responsibility for people's lives. I don't. I don't want anybody else to die for me. I'm up to my knees in blood as is."
"I had to send three patrols out," Curran said. "Because of you. None of them died, but they could have. All because you couldn't stand to not be the center of attention for a few minutes."
"You're an asshole."
"Fuck you."
I started sniffing. "What the hell is that stink? Oh, wait a minute, it's you. You reek. Did you dine on skunk or is that your natural odor?"
"That's enough," Mahon roared, startling both of us into silence. "You're acting like children. Curran, you've missed your meditation, and you need one. Kate, there is a punching bag in your room. Make use of it."
"Why do I have to punch the bag while he meditates?" I mumbled on the way out.
"Because he breaks the bags when he punches them," Mahon said. ~ Ilona Andrews

Good men seek it by the natural means of the virtues; evil men, however, try to achieve the same goal by a variety of concupiscences, and that is surely an unnatural way of seeking the good. Don't you agree? ~ Boethius

Much that is natural, to the will must yield.
Men manufacture both machine and soul,
And use what they imperfectly control
To dare a future from the taken routes. ~ Thom Gunn

I believe in the city as a natural human environment, but we must humanize it. It's art that will re-define public space in the 21st Century. We can make our cities diverse, inspirational places by putting art, dance and performance in all its forms into the matrix of street life. ~ Antony Gormley

I had no idea who I was when I started. I was frightened to death and had no natural performing skills. ~ Garry Shandling

The clearest evidence that we are living beyond environmental means is the threat of dangerous climate change. The scale of this threat, to human life and to the natural resources and assets on which it depends, for everything from oxygen and clean water to healthy soils and flood defence, means that this simply must be our top priority ~ David Miliband

Southerners are the more lonely and spiritually estranged, I think, because we have lived so long in an artificial social system that we insisted was natural and right and just - when all along we knew it wasn't. ~ Carson McCullers

I've been musically inclined since I picked up an instrument in the fourth grade. I just really appreciate music. I love to listen to it; I love to sing. I wouldn't consider myself, like, a natural singer. I just developed it over time, honestly, just listening. I'm a great listener to music. ~ Kyrie Irving

I work within the limits of what I have and know, simplicity and low impact, natural materials and processes, leaving a delicate footprint. ~ David Trubridge

As in most obituaries, the author said little about the man; they rarely do. But the reticence here was greater than usual. It mentioned that Ravenscliff left a wife, but did not say when they married. It said nothing at all about his life, nor where he lived. There were not even any of the usual phrases to give a slight hint: 'a natural raconteur' (loved the sound of his own voice); 'Noted for his generosity to friends' (profligate); 'a formidable enemy . . .' (a brute); 'a severe but fair employer . . .' (a slave-driver); 'devoted to the turf' (never read a book in his life); 'a life-long bachelor' (vice); 'a collector of flowers' (this meant a great womaniser. Why it came to mean such a thing I do not know.) More browsing ~ Iain Pears

When I was first aware that I had been laid low by the disease, I felt a need, among other things, to register a strong protest against the word "depression." Depression, most people know, used to be termed "melancholia," a word which appears in English as the year 1303 and crops up more than once in Chaucer, who in his usage seemed to be aware of its pathological nuances. "Melancholia" would still appear to be a far more apt and evocative word for the blacker forms of the disorder, but it was usurped by a noun with a blank tonality and lacking any magisterial presence, used indifferently to describe an economic decline or a rut in the ground, a true wimp of a word for such a major illness.

It may be that the scientist generally held responsible for its currency in modern times, a Johns Hopkins Medical School faculty member justly venerated -- the Swiss-born psychiatrist Adolf Meyer -- had a tin ear for the finer rhythms of English and therefore was unaware of the semantic damage he had inflicted for such a dreadful and raging disease. Nonetheless, for over seventy-five years the word has slithered innocuously through the language like a slug, leaving little trace of its intrinsic malevolence and preventing, by its insipidity, a general awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease when out of control. ~ William Styron

we were struck down as one by a virus of most vile design, whether it is natural or manmade, we do not know. In the beginning it did not take our lives firsthand, but in the darkness of women's bodies, it did its horrid work. It undermined the very fabric of life, its effects robbing the world of procreation by burning out the possibility of female existence. ~ Joe Hart