Inspirational Nature Quotes: Inviting Nature into Our Lives

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire.
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.  Saint Patrick

Exploring Our Relationship With Nature

Man is not himself only...He is all that he sees; all that flows to him from a thousand sources...He is the land, the lift of its mountain lines, the reach of its valleys.  Mary Austin

We inter-breath with the rain forests, we drink from the oceans.  They are part of our own body.  Thich Nhat Hanh

You didn't come into this world.  You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.  You are not a stranger here.  Alan Watts

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.  William Shakespeare

These are brand-new birds of   
twelve-months' growing,  
Which a year ago, or less than twain,   
No finches were, nor nightingales,  
Nor thrushes,   
But only particles of grain,   
And earth and air, and rain.  Thomas Hardy

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?  Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?  Henry David Thoreau

Valuing Nature

Your deepest roots are in nature.  No matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of life you lead, you remain irrevocably linked with the rest of creation.  Charles Cook

...no matter how complex or affluent, human societies are nothing but subsystems of the biosphere, the Earth's thin veneer of life, which is ultimately run by bacteria, fungi and green plants.  Vaclav Smil

For the 99 percent of the time we've been on Earth, we were hunter and gatherers, our lives dependent on knowing the fine, small details of our world.  Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine.  Janine M. Benyus

If there is one thing clear about the centuries dominated by the factory and the wheel, it is that although the machine can make everything from a spoon to a landing-craft, a natural joy in earthly living is something it never has and never will be able to manufacture.  Henry Beston

There is something of the marvelous in all things of nature.  Aristotle

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.  e.e. cummings

Experiencing Joy in Nature

What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth under my feet once more,    
to follow grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks   
where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes,    
or to clamber over a stone wall into green fields that    
tumble and roll and climb in riotous gladness!  Helen Keller

I am in love with this world . . . I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.  John Burroughs

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.  John Milton

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.  Kahlil Gibran

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes  e.e. cummings

Go out, go out I beg of you    
And taste the beauty of the wild.    
Behold the miracle of the earth    
With all the wonder of a child.  Edna Jaques

Healing Through Nature

The indescribable innocence of and beneficence of Nature,--of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter,--such health, such cheer, they afford forever!  Henry David Thoreau

Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in.  John Muir

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy amidst the simple beauty of nature. ...I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.  Anne Frank

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, - no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was in the forest that I found "the peace that passeth understanding"  Jane Goodall

The forest makes your heart gentle.  You become one with it... No place for greed or anger there.  Pha Pachak

Away from the tumult of motor and mill
I want to be care-free; I want to be
still!
I'm weary of doing things; weary of
words
I want to be one with the blossoms
and birds.  Edgar A. Guest

Discovering Wisdom in Nature

Nature is man's teacher.    
She unfolds her treasure to his search,   
unseals his eye, illumes his mind,    
and purifies his heart;     
an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds    
of her existence.  Alfred Billings Street

Believe one who knows: you will find something greater in woods than in books.  Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.  Saint Bernard de Clairvaux

Whenever I have found myself stuck in the ways I relate to things, I return to nature. It is my principal teacher, and I try to open my whole being to what it has to say.  Wynn Bullock

If there is any wisdom running through my life now, in my walking on this earth, it came from listening in the Great Silence to the stones, trees, space, the wild animals, to the pulse of all life as my heartbeat.  Vijali Hamilton

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness.  This mysterious unity and integrity is wisdom, the mother of us all, "natura naturans."  There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy.  It rises up in wordless gentleness, and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being.  Thomas Merton

Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.  William Wordsworth

Learning from Nature

The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one's eyes...  George Sand

Look!  Look!  Look deep into nature and you will understand everything.  Albert Einstein

To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long...  John Moffitt

You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.  Henry David Thoreau

One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us.  Black Elk

I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it.  Henry David Thoreau

Don't think: Look!  Wittgenstein

The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged - keep on - there are divine things, well envelop'd; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.  Walt Whitman

Teaching Children Through Nature

Every child is born a naturalist. His eyes are, by nature, open to the glories of the stars, the beauty of the flowers, and the mystery of life.  R. Search

As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many eras of the earth; to see the land as an animal does; to experience the sky from the perspective of a flower or a bee; to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us; to know a hundred different smells of mud and listen unselfconsciously to the soughing of the trees.  Valerie Andrews

Must we always teach our children with books? Let them look at the stars and the mountains above. Let them look at the waters and the trees and flowers on Earth. Then they will begin to think, and to think is the beginning of a real education.  David Polis

Wisdom begins in wonder.  Socrates

If you wish your children to think deep thoughts, to know the holiest emotions, take them to the woods and hills, and give them the freedom of the meadows; the hills purify those who walk upon them.  Richard Jefferies

Only as a child's awareness and reverence for the wholeness of life are developed can his humanity to his own kind reach its full development.  Rachel Carson

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons.  It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth.  Walt Whitman

Inviting Nature in Through Gardening

The garden is where you take the time in your life to tune in and listen.  It just takes being still long enough, opening your heart, opening your spirit up to what the plants have to tell you.  Gabriel Howearth

To cultivate a garden is. . . to go hand in hand with Nature in some of her most beautiful processes...  Christian Bovee

Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe of God, nothing seems to me more surprising than the planting of a seed in the blank earth and the result thereof.  Celia Thaxter

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation.  It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.  Nathaniel Hawthorne

My spirit was lifted and my soul nourished by my time in the garden. It gave me a calm connection with all of life, and an awareness that remains with me now, long after leaving the garden.  Nancy Ross

All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.  Helen Hayes

Connecting With Other Beings

I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such beings as crawl on earth.  Mahatma Gandhi

I'm sure I've been a toad, one time or another.  With bats, weasels, worms...I rejoice in the kinship.  Even the caterpillar I can love, and the various vermin.  Theodore Roethke

Never a day passes but that I do myself the honor to commune with some of nature's varied forms.  George Washington Carver

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.  Henry David Thoreau

As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing.  I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche.  I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.  John Muir

The purpose of life is undoubtedly to know oneself.  We cannot do it unless we learn to identify ourselves with all that lives.  The sum-total of that life is God.  Mahatma Gandhi