Nature Speaks Quotes

All the same," I said, "when you read the prints in the snow and the evidence of the branches, you did not yet know Brunellus. In a certain sense those prints spoke of all horses, or at least all horses of that breed. Mustn't we say, then, that the book of nature speaks to us only of essences, as many distinguished theologians teach?"
"Not entirely, dear Adso," my master replied. "True, that kind of print expressed to me, if you like, the idea of 'horse,' the verbum mentis, and would have expressed the same to me wherever I might have found it. But the print in that place and at that hour of the day told me that at least one of all possible horses had passed that way. So I found myself halfway between the perception of the concept 'horse' and the knowledge of an individu?al horse. And in any case, what I knew of the universal horse had been given me by those traces, which were singular. I could say I was caught at that moment between the singularity of the traces and my ignorance, which assumed the quite diaphanous form of a univer?sal idea. If you see something from a distance, and you do not understand what it is, you will be content with defining it as a body of some dimension. When you come closer, you will then define it as an animal, even if you do not yet know whether it is a horse or an ass. And finally, when it is still closer, you will be able to say it is a horse even if you do not yet know whether it is Brunellus or Niger. And only when you are at the proper ~ Umberto Eco

When you have trust in the supreme and live with purity of heart, nature herself would express through myriad forms all around you and I am sure the same will take you where you ought to be. ~ Preeth Nambiar

As science has become more abstract and remote from everyday experience, the role of metaphor in our descriptions of the world has become more central. The language that nature speaks, as Galileo long pointed out, is mathematics. The language that ordinary human beings speak, especially those of us who are not fluent in mathematics, is metaphor. Lightman ends his discussion with another metaphor: "We are blind men, imagining what we don't see." That is a good description of theoretical physics. ~ Freeman Dyson

Nature speaks in symbols and in signs. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

Natural phenomena teach us so much if we open ourselves to their various interpretations. ~ Dave Cenker

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story. ~ Linda Hogan

But are those prayers of theirs, those tears, all fruitless? Is their love, their hallowed selfless love, not omnipotent? Oh Yes! however passionate, sinful and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep at us serenely with their innocent eyes; they speak to us not only of eternal peace, of the vast repose of 'indifferent' nature: they tell us, too, of everlasting reconciliation and of life which has no end. ~ Ivan Turgenev

And I saw in them a hope...A hope that it was possible to have secrets, to mask one's true nature...and yet still to walk among men. ~ Kurt Busiek

Look around. The hantavirus is waiting for you. Ebola and the tropical rainforest is cooking up all kinds of brews to make sure that the population is kept in control. All these things are necessary. Why is there an increase in sexual deviance right now? Because it goes against procreative sex. Mother Nature does not want more children. This is not a time of birth. It is not a time to give birth, it's a time to die. The Bible says all things under heaven and that includes death as well as life. You out there, you comfortable ones, you point the finger. You say the junkie is the problem, you say the sexual deviant, serial killer, racist, and the man who hates his fellow man is the problem. But they ain't the problem. You're the problem. The sexual deviant, the murderer, the serial killer, the taker of human life is the cure, you're the problem. ~ Joe Coleman

The availability of cheap effective lighting alone, following Thomas Edison's invention of the incandescent bulb in 1879, greatly extended the range of waking human consciousness, effectively adding more hours onto the day - for work, for entertainment, for study, for discovery, for consumption. Subsequently, one development led to another, and to yet another, fueled by a corporate economy in developed nations, and then later by the arms race, and then the space race, as human ambition literally outgrew the planet. It seemed that there was no limit on what humanity could achieve. But there was a flaw at the heart of that expansive optimism - namely, that humanity cannot exist as a thing apart from nature; it has no destiny but annihilation apart from the land that gave it birth. ~ Clark Strand

The imaginative faculty in the soul or the mutakhayyilah is by nature crooked; it is capable of imagining things that are not real. Which is why it needs to be guided by Revelation, and evaluated against those who have obtained Aqal Mustafad or acquired intellect, whose intellect is always in the direction of the Alam Malakut, and in constant communication with God. ~ Hasanul Arifin Ibnu Zawawi

Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace. ~ George Santayana

Where innocent bright-eyes daisies are With blades of grass between, Each daisy stands up like a star Out of a sky of green. ~ Christina Rossetti

Dark furrow lines grid the snow, punctuated by orange abacus beads of pumpkins - now the crows own the field ... ~ John Geddes

In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It's their nature . They can't help it. ~ Carl Sagan

And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood. ~ William Cullen Bryant

If I have learned one thing in the years of my existence, one nugget of wisdom from having lived in the midst of disputations over faith and the nature of the world, it is that everything ends. This is both the blessing and the punishment of God upon the foolish tribe that calls itself man. We can embrace the end or we can weep, but the ghost of time closes all doors with a finality that can never be gainsaid. ~ Kamran Pasha

The truest definition of evil is that which represents it as something contrary to nature; evil is evil because it is unnatural; a vine which should bear olive-berries, an eye to which blue seems yellow, would be diseased; an unnatural mother, an unnatural son, an unnatural act, are the strongest terms of condemnation. ~ Frederick William Robertson

One conceals oneself standing silently beside the trunk of a tree and what there is of a reflective tendency in his nature is intensified. One shudders at the thought of the meaninglessness of life while at the same instant, and if the people of the town are his people, one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes. ~ Sherwood Anderson

We cannot say, in familiar everyday terms, what it 'means' for an electron to be in a state of superposition of two places at once, with complex-number weighting factors w and z. We must, for the moment, simply accept that this is indeed the kind of description that we have to adopt for quantum-level systems. Such superpositions constitute an important part of the actual construction of our microworld, as has now been revealed to us by Nature. It is just a fact that we appear to find that the quantum-level world actually behaves in this unfamiliar and mysterious way. The descriptions are perfectly clear cut-and they provide us with a micro-world that evolves according to a description that is indeed mathematically precise and, moreover, completely deterministic! ~ Roger Penrose

What is impossible to God? Not that which is difficult to His power, but that which is contrary to His nature. ~ Ambrose

Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. ~ C.S. Lewis

It seems to me that before the photograph can exist as art it must, by its very nature choose whether it is to be a record or a testimony. ~ Yukio Mishima

A person whose desires and impulses are his own - are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture - is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character ... ~ John Stuart Mill

We might not be able to know what reality is about, but we can't but be aware of the explicitness of facts. To get a better grip on the intricate nature of the truth and its ambiguity, we have got to scrutinize facts and find out about their codes. But, yet, we can't ignore that reality is a very intriguing place, since facts may be construed, receive variant contexts and create alternate outcomes, which, in turn, might spark new realities, over again. ("Imbroglio" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

We have to combine, certainly, but if we combine to fight on the idea of each man making more money for himself, then we end by fighting one another. And that's the trouble now ... human dealings are founded - founded - not on money but on what is fair and just all round. ~ Neil M. Gunn

It is a sign of a dull nature to occupy oneself deeply in matters that concern the body; for instance, to be over much occupied about exercise, about eating and drinking, about easing oneself, about sexual intercourse. ~ David Bailey

Clean the lenses of your heart - world is beautiful. ~ Amit Ray

I do not want to sound cynical or condescending, but your lips are moving, your mind unbending. ~ Fakeer Ishavardas

The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrollable way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most ~ David Attenborough

Once a female, always a female. Nature is not always infallible but she always abides by her mistakes. ~ Hector Hugh Munro

Philosophy would long ago have reached a high level if our predecessors and fathers had put this into practice; and we would not waste time on the primary difficulties, which appear now as severe as in the first centuries which noticed them. We would have the experience of assured phenomena, which would serve as principles for a solid reasoning; truth would not be so deeply sunken; nature would have taken off most of her envelopes; one would see the marvels she contains in all her individuals ... ~ Marin Mersenne

A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Stillness speaks not with mouth and tongue, but with the essential roar of Eternity itself. ~ Martin Cosgrove

When someone doesn't show up, the people who wait sometimes tell stories about what might have happened and come to half believe the desertion, the abduction, the accident. Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't
and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown. Perhaps fantasy is what you fill up maps with rather than saying that they too contain the unknown. ~ Rebecca Solnit

I had come to believe that her powers, whatever their nature, were greater than mine. But now I was chagrined to realize
that I had failed to grasp how we were in at least one way alike: Some things visible to us were invisible to the vast majority of human beings, even if perhaps each of us saw different things from what the other perceived. ~ Dean Koontz

Fundamentally, we are a product of choice, not nature (genes) or nurture (upbringing, environment). ~ Stephen Covey

With same day loans, you can easily acquire immediate funds, so as to deal with any short term financial crisis. These loans are unsecured in nature and can be applied for even by those with serious credit disputes. ~ Markus Skupeika

Any judgment, any evaluation - even if it approves and speaks a blessing - will be heard as a negation. This is an absolute first principle of this book. Law is an attack. It is heard as a negation by its recipient. All laws are negation. God's law is the negation. ~ Paul F. M. Zahl

I make my way to the cave and notice a silhouette at the lip of the cavern. Kiaran. "Let me guess," I say, drawing nearer, "your sister told you where to find me."

His smile isn't visible in the darkness, but I can hear it when he speaks. "On the contrary," he says. "She told me I looked like I needed fresh air. It wasn't until I saw you that I realized she decided to engage in her second-favorite hobby."

"Subterfuge?"

"I was going to say meddling, but you're not wrong. ~ Elizabeth May

Wednesday

Wind and spindles of clouds crowding the peaks from the south. A lone chicken pecks away on the lawn....
To be a concrete man. To be an individual. Not to strive to transform the whole world. To live in the world, changing it only as much as possible from within the reach of my nature. To become real in harmony with my needs, my individual needs.
I do not want to say that collective and abstract thought, that Humanity as such, are not important. Yet a certain balance must be restored. The most modern direction of is one that will rediscover the individual man. ~ Witold Gombrowicz

We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world. Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we "see" ourselves - our self-paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people. It becomes our map of the basic nature of ~ Stephen R. Covey

I told them this was their language, this English, this most marvellous and expressive cloak of meaning and imagination. This great, exclamatory, illuminating song, it belonged to anyone who found it in their mouths. There was no wrong way to say it, or write it, the language couldn't be compelled or herded, it couldn't be tonsured or pruned, pollarded or plaited, it was as hard as oaths and as subtle as rhyme. It couldn't be forced or bullied or policed by academics; it wasn't owned by those with flat accents; nobody had the right to tell them how to use it or what to say. There are no rules and nobody speaks incorrectly, because there is no correctly: no high court of syntax. And while everyone can speak with the language, nobody speaks for the language. Not grammars, not dictionaries. They just run along behind, picking up discarded usages. This English doesn't belong to examiners or teachers. All of you already own the greatest gift, the highest degree this country can bestow. It's on the tip of your tongue. ~ A.A. Gill