Nature and Elements

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of Nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at a time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought.

Whenever you observe an animal closely, you have the feeling that a person sitting inside is making fun of you.

Animals are such agreeable friends— they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

A leader . . . is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.

If the wicked flourish and the fittest survive, Nature must be the God of rascals.

Those whom we called brutes had their revenge when Darwin shewed us that they are our cousins.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.

JUST LIVING IS NOT ENOUGH… ONE MUST HAVE SUNSHINE, FREEDOM, AND A LITTLE FLOWER.

When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country.

Anyone can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

Deer-stalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns.

THERE ARE ONLY TEN MINUTES IN THE LIFE OF A PEAR WHEN IT IS PERFECT TO EAT.

THERE ARE ONLY TEN MINUTES IN THE LIFE OF A PEAR WHEN IT IS PERFECT TO EAT.

No animal ever invented anything so bad as drunkenness – or so good as drink.

MY SUN SETS TO RISE AGAIN.

A fly, sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.

I only know how true it is: that love is a chain of love, as nature is a chain of life.

The illuminable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing oceantide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it.