Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is a superstition. It does not exist in nature --Helen Keller (in Untitled)

As all living beings desire to be happy always, without misery, as in the case of every one there is observed supreme love for one's self, and as happiness alone is the cause for love, in order to gain that happiness which is one's nature and which is experienced in the state of deep sleep where there is no mind, one should know one's self. For that, the path of knowledge, the inquiry of the form 'Who am I?' is the prinicpal means. --Ramana Maharishi (in Deep Sleep)

Consider this. All the ants of the planet, taken together, have a biomass greater than that of humans. Ants have been incredibly industrious for millions of years. Yet their productivity nourishes plants, animals and soil. Human industry has been in full swing for little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn't have a design problem. People do. --Michael Braungart (in Ants of the Planet)

To explain that which is simple can be difficult indeed. If we can understand even one simple thing in depth, we will have greatly expanded our capacity for comprehending the nature of the universe and life itself. --David Hawkins (in Measuring Emotions)

When in the spring the withered gray of the fields gives way to a carpet of green, this is because millions of shoots are springing up anew from the roots. Our age must achieve spiritual renewal. It can do so only in one way: the masses of the people must reflect upon the nature of true goodness. Out of such reflection, new principles and ideas will inevitably arise. As the trees bear the same fruit anew year after year, so from generation to generation all worthwhile ideas must be born anew in the thinking of mankind. --Albert Schweitzer (in Springing Up Anew)

Multitudinousness of objects have no reality in themselves but are only seen of the mind and, therefore, are of the nature of maya and a dream. --Buddha (in Your Wish Is Its Command)

Think of a tree. When you think of a tree, you tend to think of a distinctly defined object. But when you look at it more closely, you will see that it has no independent existence. When you contemplate it you will find that it dissolves into an extremely subtle net of relationships that stretch across the universe. The rain that falls on its leaves, the wind that sways it, the soil that nourishes and sustains it all the seasons all form part of the tree. As you think about the tree more and more you will discover that everything in the universe helps make the tree what it is; that it cannot be isolated from anything else and at every moment its nature is subtly changing. --Soygal Rinpoche (in Universe Makes The Tree)

Life is a mystery until you touch the reality beyond the veil. When the mind is still and the search is intense, we have the vision to see reality all around us. Every person you meet is in a world you could know. Nature waits for our entrance, whether it is a forest or a rose. All around us is the presence waiting for a quiet mind and an open heart. Walking through the markets and riding in the subway, we can be close to the reality. We are moving through various states of reality during the day. --Herman Rednick (in Reality Beyond The Veil)

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (in The Penguin Escape)

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. --Charles Darwin (in Chocolate)

If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day. --Alex Noble (in Untitled)

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else. --Peyton Conway March (in Fairy Godmother)

One Touch of nature makes the whole world kin. --William Shakespeare - Troilus and Cressida (in Green Clean)

It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. --Nathaniel Hawthorne (in Sorry's State of Affairs)

When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (in Reading A Blade of Grass)

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. --Henry Ward Beecher (in The Artist Who Was A Horse)

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story. --Linda Hogan (in Japan's Carbon Footprint Labels)

An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth. --Auguste Rodin (in One Woman's Artistic Gift)

We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted. --Theodore Roosevelt (in Temporary Urban PARK(ing))

I have never come across anything in nature that is superfluous and does not fulfill a function. There seems to be no redundancy or unemployment in these natural worlds. Be it rock or plant, bird or tree, or even the bacteria within the soil, everything occupies a vital place in the dance of life. --Michael Lindfield (in Eco-Cities For 400 Million People)

Give like the rose gives its perfume -- effortlessly, unconditionally because it is its own nature. --Swami Vivekananda (in $10,000 Tip On A $26 Tab)

There is something deep within our nature. A guiding light if you will. A voice that always speaks of goodness. A voice that is always moving us towards more love, towards more life. Can we hear it? Sitting in silence is an attempt to become in tune with your own self, with your own voice. --Sukh Chugh (in One Million Meditate for Peace)

In this new world, you and I make it up as we go along, not because we lack expertise or planning skills, but because that is the nature of reality. Reality changes shape and meaning because of our activity. And it is constantly new. We are required to be there, as active participants. It can’t happen without us and nobody can do it for us. --Margaret Wheatley (in The Business of Changing the World)

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to. . . . The feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures. --Vincent Van Gogh (in A Young Bird-Lover's Opportune Shot)

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. --John Muir (in Creating Breathing Places)

To be the agent whose touch changes nature from a wild force to a work of art is inspiration of the highest order. --Bob Rodale (in A 17-year-old's Life-saving Breakthrough)

To live more simply is to unburden our lives -- to live more lightly, cleanly, aerodynamically. It is to establish a more direct, unpretentious and unencumbered relationship with all aspects of our lives: the things that we consume, the work that we do, our relationships with others, our connections with nature and the cosmos, and more. --Duane Elgin (in A Dollar A Year CEO)

Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility and commitment. --Ross Perot (in Lessons From A Dyslexic CEO)

It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. --Nathaniel Hawthorne (in Harvard Professor Resolves Ethiopian Crisis)

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast. --William Shakespeare (in The Science Of Sleep and Scent)

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another. --Juvenal (in Strangest Sights on Earth)

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver. --Martin Luther (in Finding Gifts That Don't Harm)

Almost everyone thinks that "nature" is a good thing, but few can grasp the difference between natural and unnatural. --Masanobu Fukuoka (in Do-Nothing Cultivation)

Love is a force that connects us to every strand of the universe, an unconditional state that characterizes human nature, a form of knowledge that is always there for us if only we can open ourselves to it. -- Emily Hilburn Sell (in My Hour on the Streets of New York)

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. --Albert Einstein (in A Stroke of Insight)

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things. --Ansel Adams (in Capturing Final, Precious Moments)

The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves. --Rachel Carson (in Restoring The World's Coral Reefs)

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. --Thomas Paine (in Zero-Emission Car)

Thought is cause: experience is effect. If you don't like the effects in your life, you have to change the nature of your thinking. --Mariannne Williamson (in Resonant Leadership)

See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls. --Mother Teresa (in Saving the Sound of Silence)

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. --Helen Keller (in The Real Meaning of Security)

Everyone understands that water is essential to life. But many are only just now beginning to grasp how essential it is to everything in life food, energy, transportation, nature, leisure, identity, culture, social norms, and virtually all the products used on a daily basis. --World Business Council for Sustainable Development (in Flow: The Movie About Water)

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else. --Peyton Conway March (in Designing For Generosity)

This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy. --Susan Polis Schutz (in The Artist Who Paints Disappearing Rain Forests)

If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day. --Alex Nobel (in Estonians Build a Happiness Bank)

If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day. --Alex Noble (in Stir Your World)

Life is a gift of nature; but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom. --Greek Adage (in 1 Piece of Advice)

Considering the whole span of earthly time ... Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world --Rachel Carson (in Putting the Cycling in Recycling)

The world and everything in it is being strained to the breaking point...strained to the point of transformation. It's our being brought to a point... closer to contact with our essential nature, to the truth of our own experience. --Tom Hurley (in You are Brilliant -- and the Earth is Hiring)

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast. --William Shakespeare (in How Much Sleep Do We Need?)