“To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is not confined to sweet sounds.”

Living in the city is a discordant thing, an unnatural thing.

How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.

Leap, and the net will appear.

The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked and defined than that of the birds. Show a botanist a landscape, and he will tell you where to look for the lady’s-slipper, the columbine, or the harebell.

It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, the exceptional, and links it to the sequence of natural causation.

Where country life is safe and enjoyable, where many of the conveniences and appliances of the town are joined to the large freedom and large benefits of the country, a high state of civilization prevails.

One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion.

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.

Fear, love, and hunger were the agents that developed the wits of the lower animals, as they were, of course, the prime factors in developing the intelligence of man.

There never was a happier or more devoted husband than the male bluebird. He is the gay champion and escort of the female at all times, and while she is sitting, he feeds her regularly.

Emerson stands apart from the other poets and essayists of New England, and of English literature generally, as of another order.

How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.

Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality.

My life has been a fortunate one; I was born under a lucky star. It seems as if both wind and tide had favoured me.

I’ve been worryin’ that we all, live our lives, in the confines of fear

The human imagination… has great difficulty in living strictly within the confines of a materialist practice or philosophy.

We can’t be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can’t be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.

The pagan loves the earth in order to enjoy it and confine himself within it; the Christian in order to make it purer and draw from it the strength to escape from it.

Yet the abyss is not not infinite; its bottom may suddenly be discovered within the confines of a human heart or under the debris of might doubts.

Fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.

Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions.