He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature.

It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth.

If we could establish a deep abiding relationship with nature, we would never kill an animal for our appetite; we would never harm, vivisect, a monkey, a dog, a guinea pig for our benefit. We would find other ways to heal our wounds, heal our bodies.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

We never look deeply into the quality of a tree; we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of the trunk and the silent sound of the roots.

All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.

To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.

Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.

You shall, I question not, find a way to the top if you diligently seek for it; for nature hath placed nothing so high that it is out of the reach of industry and valor.

I see for Nature no defeat In one tree's overthrow Or for myself in my retreat For yet another blow.

Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

The writing in this book gives us a vocabulary and a way of seeing. But ultimately, with these words resonating in our consciousness, we must turn to the book of nature itself. It matters how we think about and touch this place during our brief and precious time in the world…it can come to reside in us as surely as we reside in it.

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

“Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion.”