Nature and Elements

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.

The imagination is man’s power over nature.

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

When the sea was calm all ships alike showed mastership in floating.

One is born into a herd of buffaloes and must be glad if one is not trampled underfoot before one’s time.

It is better for people to be like the beasts… They should be more intuitive; they should not be too conscious of what they are doing while they are doing it.