“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter.”

Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the text-books in the schools; but study it yourself in the fields and woods, and you will find it a source of perennial delight.

You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.

In winter, the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.

We talk of communing with Nature, but ’tis with ourselves we commune.

Like tens of thousands of others, I have been a spectator of, rather than a participator in, the activities – political, commercial, sociological, scientific – of the times in which I have lived.

Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no space, no great, no small, no beginning, no end.

If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.

Whitman will always be a strange and unwonted figure among his country’s poets, and among English poets generally: a cropping out again, after so many centuries, of the old bardic prophetic strain.

The naturist must see all things in the light of his experiences in this world.

Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art impulse.

The love of nature is a different thing from the love of science, though the two may go together.

Father knew me not. All my aspirations in life were a sealed book to him, as much as his peculiar religious experiences were to me.

My motto is never to try to imitate anybody: I have always looked inward and followed the inward voice.

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.

I have thought that a good test of civilization, perhaps one of the best, is country life.

To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.

The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements. … They were elements of disorder and subversion.

False principles, which correspond with the bad as well as with the just aspirations of mankind, are a normal and necessary element in the social life of nations.

If two irreconcilable elements are struggling with each other, the solution lies in force. There has never been any other solution in history, and there never will be.

If it is the dirty element that gives pleasure to the act of lust, then the dirtier it is, the more pleasurable it is bound to be.

However it may be confounded or covered up or counterfeited, this elemental capacity to fight against injustice remains the distinguishing characteristic of human beings.

I like fragrances that have some sweetness to them. All three I have developed have that as a common element.

Chanel is composed of only a few elements, white camellias, quilted bags and Austrian doorman’s jackets, pearls, chains, shoes with black toes. I use these elements like notes to play with.

The essential element of love is a belief in its own eternity.