Natural World Quotes

“George didn't do quiet or subtle. His big paws kicked up rocks as he stretched into his own version of a freight train.”
― Lisa Kaniut Cobb, Down in the Valley

“Josh tasted the decaying leaves of autumn in the cold mountain air.”
― Lisa Kaniut Cobb, Down in the Valley

“was he connected to the hitman? I didn't worry about it”
― Edward Williams, Framed & Hunted: A True Story of Occult Persecution

“When a trapper entered the valley, I reflected back on my life as an Indian. "I'm sure as an Indian living  on the plains, I trapped animals for their fur and for their meat, I took what I needed for survival, but doing it for profit somehow rubbed me the wrong way”
― John-Paul Cernak, The Odyssey of a Hippie Marijuana Grower

“Tonight the sun has died like an Emperor ... great scarlet arcs of silk ... saffron ... green ... crimson ... and the blaze of Venus to remind one of the absolute and the infinite ... and along the lower rim of beauty lay the hard harsh line of the hills ...”
― John Coldstream, Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

“Just as Wallace learned and evolved, Ali was on his own journey of discovery. Starting out as a 15-year-old cook, Ali learned to collect and mount specimens. He took on responsibility for organizing travel. He nursed Wallace during many bouts of fever and injury.”
― Paul Spencer Sochaczewski, "Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird": Searching for Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace's Faithful Companion

“There is a deep interconnectedness of all life on earth, from the tiniest organisms, to the largest ecosystems, and absolutely between each person.”
― Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason

“Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“I believe until fairly recently our destructions of nature were more or less unwitting -- the by-products, so to speak, of our ignorance or weakness or depravity. It is our present principled and elaborately rationalized rape and plunder of the natural world that is a new thing under the sun.”
― Wendell Berry

“Embracing permaculture economics means recognizing the intrinsic value of the natural world.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., Principles of a Permaculture Economy

“For the human experience, life in the natural world seems to require the application of meaning, in order to evoke purpose.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“No human being could live in this wasted country, thought Mary, and remain like other people; the very children would be born twisted, like the blackened shrubs of broom, bent by the force of a wind that never ceased, blow as it would from east and west, from north and south. Their minds would be twisted, too, their thoughts evil, dwelling as they must amidst marshland and granite, harsh heather and crumbling stone.”
― Daphne du Maurier , Jamaica Inn

“The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialisation, 'Western civilisation' or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. Throughout all of history and prehistory, human advance has coincided with ecological devastation.”
― John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

“Nature has painted beauty across the earth; may human hearts forever reflect its grace.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Some of the most important moments in life are those spent alone, in quiet communion with nature.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Mother nature is the greatest painter.”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

“We’ve made a mess of the world, but all is not yet lost. One of the most important things is to connect people, especially children, to nature.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“I don’t care who ascends and who descends in life anymore. I’ve had enough of this drama. I am going for a forest walk. I am entering the deep woods.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“You can’t escape the cultural associations embodied by plants. You can’t have one without the other.”
― Ayurella Horn-Muller, Devoured: The Extraordinary Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Ate the South

“I planted flowers,
and they planted hope in me.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Slipping into another world

“The whisper of the wind through the grass speaks to my soul, revealing life's truths more deeply than the clamour of my thoughts.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Slipping into another world

“After weeks in the forest, the woods embrace us as their own, and the wilderness hums softly, attuned to our souls.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Our Nepal, Our Pride

“I stand upon a windswept ridge,
listening to the murmurs of the wind.
I waver and merge with the light and shadows,
becoming one with everything surrounding me.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Do not disturb my plants—they are rooted in peace, and disturbing them stirs more than just the soil. It unsettles everything around them, including my very soul.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“If the butterflies don’t dance,
the ants don’t march,
and the bees don’t come in a swarm —
that’s it.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Let us be grateful
for the bees and fireflies—
small wonders
that keep the world
blooming and glowing,
our tiny guardians
of life and light.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Along with the rest of the environmental movement, I used the expression 'climate emergency', but over the past year of elm-watching, I've realised emergencies are events that require immediate, drastic, high-paced intervention, designed to bring the situation to an end. Climate action just isn't like that and I no longer believe the emergency metaphor is helpful: it implies that the problem will be short-lived, that experts will be able to handle it and that we should be in a state of heightened emotion, in 'fight-or-flight' mode, until help arrives. It makes many people so upset that they're understandably immobilised or frozen with fear, or too distressed to be rational. In reality we all need to engage deeply and long term, in cool, life-affirming ways. I believe recovery or healing is a better way of thinking about the issue: getting off our fossil fuel addiction, restoring our damaged relationship with the rest of the natural world and trasforming to healthier ways of being.”
― Mandy Haggith, The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees – and the Fight to Save Them

“We live in glorified cages, and refer to them as houses. We find comfort in our prisons, yet complain often of being sick. We have forgotten that our noses are not the only conduits for breathing; that the pores of our skins can breathe as well. When we prefer inhaling overused air to a fresh free-flowing air; artificial light to natural light; sedentary lifestyle to itinerancy, we begin to slowly deteriorate. We were created to roam, and not to stay home. We were made for nature, and nature was made for us.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Sips And Little Portions

“Central to the Naboland concept is the notion of evidence, manufactured artefacts and displays that mimic museum practice, encouraging the viewer to suspend disbelief and enter into a space where the absurd coexists with the archaeological, the nostalgic with the environmental. While often whimsical in tone, Behrens' work carries with it an increasingly urgent ecological message. Naboland. is a meditation on our fragile relationship with the natural world, and the objects we leave behind.”
― Christina Jansen, 50 Years of Naboland

“It's just that the animals matter in a way that's hard to define. They matter not only because a particular species will die out if we don't lock its last members away in here, but because they belong to us, to the whole story of this Earth, and without them the story would not be as beautiful or as profound. Anyone who has ever stopped to watch a hummingbird beat its tiny wings to a stillness as it draws the nectar out of a flower with its long, curled tongue will know what I mean. The natural world is beautiful even when it is terrible, even when it is engaged in ritual slaughter. Any antelope who has ever felt the hot breath of a lion on its neck will know what I mean. In that last moment of its life, the antelope surely regrets that it will never again experience the thrum of the savannah under hoof, the generous shade of the acacia tree, the smell of water running over smooth white rocks. It wishes not to have to leave this beautiful world.

The natural world and the nonhuman beings in it are part of what makes this life worth living. If we kill all the beauty around us, we kill a part of ourselves. These thoughts whirl around pointlessly in my head, never resolving, just coming back to their starting point like a snake devouring its tail.”
― Emma Sloley, The Island of Last Things