The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

The greatest wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.

The power of Nature predominates over the human will in all works of even the fine arts, in all that respects their material and external circumstances. Nature paints the best part of the picture, carves the best part of the statue, builds the best part of the house, and speaks the best part of the oration.

It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men. 

But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.

The world globes itself in a drop of dew.

Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.

These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

“Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval.” 

The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food.

The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing.

Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.

Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown.

The ancient precept, “Know thyself”, and the modern precept, “Study nature”, become at last one maxim.

If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

Everything in nature contains all the power of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

“The sky was pure opal now.” 

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.