Nature quotes
Woods, rivers, weather and the seasons, seen by Thoreau, Wordsworth, Emerson and many others. Nature quotes that sit well over a landscape photo or slow footage.
The library has 2,894 quotes on this topic. Here are 60 of the most quoted, no more than four from any one writer.
60 nature quotes
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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act III -
The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a (small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.
Laozi Tao Te Ching, ch. 64 · translated by James Legge -
To see a world in a grain of sand And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake Auguries of Innocence (first printed in Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake, 1863) -
A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness.
John Keats Endymion, Book I -
But I am constant as the northern star, Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament.
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar, Act iii. Sc. 1 -
Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 51 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.
Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds, 292 -
If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.
Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds, 6 -
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Rainy Day, Ballads and Other Poems -
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle i, Line 267 -
A primrose by a river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.
William Wordsworth Peter Bell, Part i. Stanza 12 -
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
William Shakespeare Richard III, Act v. Sc. 4 -
The primal duties shine aloft, like stars; The charities that soothe and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.
William Wordsworth The Excursion, Book ix -
The rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid’s music.
William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act ii. Sc. 1 -
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Than such a Roman.
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar, Act iv. Sc. 3 -
A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.
Henry David Thoreau Walden -
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
Henry David Thoreau Walden -
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars.
Walt Whitman Song of Myself, 31, Leaves of Grass -
The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 10 -
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.
Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre -
As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion will break through an unreflecting mind.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 13 · translated by F. Max Müller -
A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye; Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.
William Wordsworth She dwelt among the untrodden ways -
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Henry David Thoreau Walden -
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle iv, Line 331 -
The hooded clouds, like friars, Tell their beads in drops of rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Midnight Mass -
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
John Muir Our National Parks -
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
Francis Bacon Of Revenge -
In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir Steep Trails -
’Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower Of faith, and round the sufferer’s temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction’s heaviest shower, And do not shrink from sorrow’s keenest wind.
William Wordsworth Weak is the Will of Man -
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,—Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village, Line 189 -
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays. First Series. History -
I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
Lucy Maud Montgomery Anne of Green Gables -
In the woods, we return to reason and faith.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature -
He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Representative Men. Uses of Great Men -
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Evangeline, Part i. 3 -
Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling The wind is passing thro’.
Christina Rossetti Sing-Song -
I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 72 -
Innumerable as the stars of night, Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Book v. Line 745 -
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Book ii. Line 1051 -
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote, Part i. Book iv. Chap. iv -
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Book ix. Line 782 -
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Alexander Pope On the Collar of a Dog -
I hear the wind among the trees Playing celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent, Like keys of some great instrument.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Day of Sunshine -
Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom or summer’s rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Bk. iii., Line 40 -
Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle ii, Line 205 -
My soul is sick with every day’s report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
William Cowper The Task -
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control Stops with the shore.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 179 -
But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Kahlil Gibran The Prophet -
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture on the lonely shore; There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 178 -
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
Edward Gibbon Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Chap. lxviii -
’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thomas Campbell Pleasures of Hope, Part i. Line 7 -
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind’s roar But bind him to his native mountains more.
Oliver Goldsmith The Traveller, Line 217 -
Nature has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of man’s own making.
Joseph Addison -
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.
John Keats Hyperion, Book i -
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Old Ironsides -
Mountains interposed make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
William Cowper The Task, Bk. II -
What on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out buttonhole is much more effective.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
Not the perversities of others, not their sins of commission or omission, but his own misdeeds and negligences should a sage take notice of.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 50 · translated by F. Max Müller -
The aim of life is self-development. To realise one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
Whomsoever this fierce thirst overcomes, full of poison, in this world, his sufferings increase like the abounding Birana grass.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 335 · translated by F. Max Müller
Who wrote most about nature
- William Shakespeare 182
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 95
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 81
- Thomas Carlyle 72
- Blaise Pascal 65
- Marcus Aurelius 56
- William Wordsworth 55
- John Milton 50
- Lord Byron 42
- Thomas Henry Huxley 39
- Alexander Pope 37
- The Buddha 36