Here are some nature and wilderness quotes from famous authors, artists, environmental activists, philosophers, and others. Enjoy them – and if you aren’t there already – get outside!
Table of Contents
“I owe perhaps becoming a painter to flowers.”
–Claude Monet
“The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.”
–Claude Monet
“Look deep into nature, and you will understand everything better.”
–Albert Einstein
“The most beautiful gift of nature is that it gives one pleasure to look around and try to comprehend what we see.”
–Albert Einstein
“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.”
–Jacques-Yves Cousteau
“People protect what they love.”
–Jacques-Yves Cousteau
“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”
–Jacques-Yves Cousteau
“The sea is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.”
–Jacques-Yves Cousteau
“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.”
–Jacques-Yves Cousteau
“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.”
–Jacques-Yves Cousteau
“Rain is grace.”
–John Updike
“Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.”
–William Wordsworth
“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”
–Robert Louis Stevenson
“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”
–Socrates
“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
–Galileo Galilei
“If you can’t be in awe of Mother Nature, there’s something wrong with you.”
–Alex Trebek
“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”
–Wallace Stevens
“Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.”
–Charles Dickens
“Nature’s beauty is a gift that cultivates appreciation and gratitude.”
–Louie Schwartzberg
“Nature is the art of God.”
–Dante Alighieri
“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
–Rachel Carson
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
–Rachel Carson
“The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.”
–Rachel Carson
“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
–Rachel Carson
“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The Earth laughs in flowers.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nature never hurries. Atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nature is loved by what is best in us.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In the woods, we return to reason and faith.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Shall I not have intelligence with the Earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mold myself.”
–Henry David Thoreau
“In the wilderness is the salvation of the world.”
–Henry David Thoreau
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
–Henry David Thoreau
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the Earth.”
–Henry David Thoreau
“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the Earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”
–Henry David Thoreau
“How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!”
–Emily Dickinson
“Nature is our eldest mother; she will do no harm.”
–Emily Dickinson
“Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons: It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the Earth.”
–Walt Whitman
“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars.”
–Walt Whitman
“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the Earth.”
–Walt Whitman
“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.”
–Alice Walker
“I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the Universe and with the spirit of the Universe.”
–Alice Walker
“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery – air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’”
–Sylvia Plath
“My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness.”
–Michelangelo
“Choose only one master: Nature”
–Rembrandt
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
–Frank Lloyd Wright
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
–Frank Lloyd Wright
“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
“Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.”
–Sir Isaac Newton
“Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”
–Lady Bird Johnson
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
–Lao Tzu
“Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in being.”
–Eckhart Tolle
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach of us more than we can ever learn from books.”
–John Lubbock
“Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”
–Jimmy Carter
“Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
–Hans Christian Andersen
“The poetry of the Earth is never dead.”
–John Keats
“In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.”
–Aristotle
“I can find God in nature, in animals, in birds and the environment.”
–Pat Buckley
“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”
–John Burroughs
“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon the verdant green hills is the most perfect refreshment.”
–Jane Austin
“Nature is less expensive than therapy.”
–Unknown
“Butterflies are self-propelled flowers.”
–Robert A. Heinlein
“We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.”
–William Hazlett
“Love is a chain of love as nature is a chain of life.”
–Truman Capote
“In wilderness, I sense the miracle of life, and behind it, our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.
–Charles Lindbergh
“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’”
–Robin Williams
“I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”
–Vincent Van Gogh
“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”
–Vincent Van Gogh
“There is pleasure in the pathless woods. There is 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
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
–Joseph Campbell
“Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.”
–Gérard De Nerval
“Mother Nature speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer.”
–Radhanath Swami
“The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.”
–e. e. cummings
“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.”
–Joyce Kilmer
“I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful – an endless prospect of magic and wonder.”
–Ansel Adams
“The mountains are calling, and I must go.”
–John Muir
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
–John Muir
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
–John Muir
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
–John Muir
“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
“Going to the mountains is going home.”
–John Muir
“Most people are on the world, not in it.”
–John Muir
“And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”
–John Muir
“In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world.”
–John Muir
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
–John Muir
“Society speaks, and all men listen; mountains speak, and wise men listen.”
–John Muir
“Wilderness is a necessity. There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls.”
–John Muir
“The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”
–Edward Abbey
“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”
–Edward Abbey
“Love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach. It is also an expression of loyalty to the Earth, the Earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need if only we had the eyes to see.”
–Edward Abbey
“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.”
–Edward Abbey
“Nature is indifferent to our love, but never unfaithful.”
–Edward Abbey
“We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.”
–Edward Abbey
“Why this cult of wilderness? Because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.”
–Edward Abbey
“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences.”
–Jon Krakauer
“I now walk into the wild.”
–Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
“The thing that is most beautiful about Antarctica for me is the light. It’s like no other light on Earth, because the air is so free of impurities. You get drugged by it, like when you listen to one of your favorite songs. The light there is a mood-enhancing substance.”
–Jon Krakauer
“The way to Everest is not a Yellow Brick Road.”
–Jon Krakauer
“I think part of the appeal of Antarctica is experiencing some sort of power, the forces of the natural world.”
–Jon Krakauer
“Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”
–Anatoli Boukreev
“To me, wilderness is where the flow of wildness is essentially uninterrupted by technology. Without wilderness the world is a cage.”
–David Brower
“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.”
–John Hope Franklin
“The wilderness is a place that every believer has to experience to be molded for their divine purpose.”
–E’yen a. Gardner
“The wilderness is healing, a therapy for the soul.”
–Nicholas Kristof
“When we heal the Earth, we heal ourselves.”
–David Orr
“In the wilderness, we experience the faithfulness of God.”
–Lailah Gifty Akita
“The wilderness is a place of rest – not in the sense of being motionless, for the lure, after all, is to move, to round the next bend. The rest comes in the isolation from distractions, in the slowing of the daily centrifugal forces that keep us off balance.”
–David Douglas
“Wilderness gave us knowledge. It made us human. We came from here. Perhaps that is why so many of us feel a strong bond to this land called Serengeti; it is the land of our youth.”
–Boyd Norton
“Without wilderness, we will eventually lose the capacity to understand America. Our drive, our ruggedness, our unquenchable optimism and zeal and élan go back to the challenges of the untrammeled wilderness.”
–Harvey Broome
“The wilderness is a place of an encounter with the creator.”
–Lailah Gifty Akita
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”
–Mahatma Gandhi
“Forget not that the Earth delights to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair.”
–Khalil Gibran
“The Earth is what we all have in common.”
–Wendell Berry
“Love the world as your own self, then you can truly care for all things.”
–Lao Tzu
“The Earth has music for those who listen.”
–William Shakespeare
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
–William Shakespeare
“I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.”
–Kurt Vonnegut
“I think when a surfer becomes a surfer, it’s almost like an obligation to be an environmentalist at the same time.”
–Kelly Slater
“I believe the American people care a lot about the environment.”
–Robert Redford
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
–Aldo Leopold
“Wilderness is harder and harder to find these days on this beautiful planet, and we’re abusing our planet to the point of almost no return.”
–Betty White
“The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them.”
–Paul Hawken
“Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”
–E.O. Wilson
“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed. We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”
–Wallace Stegner
“Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
“There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”
–Unknown, Iroquois Proverb
“One does not sell the Earth upon which the people walk.”
–Crazy Horse, Lakota Sioux Nation
“We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren, and children – yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can’t speak for themselves, such as the birds, animals, fish, and trees.”
–Qwatsinas, Nuxalk Nation
“Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints!”
–Chief Si ahl, Duwamish and Suquamish Nations
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
–Chief Seattle, Duwamish and Suquamish Nations
“When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear. When that happens, the warriors of the rainbow will come to save them.”
–Chief Seattle, Duwamish and Suquamish Nations
“All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man… The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.”
–Chief Seattle
“Humans merely share the Earth. We can only protect the land, not own it.”
–Chief Seattle
“Treat the Earth with reverence. It was not given to us by our parents; it was loaned to us by our children.”
–Unknown, Native American Proverb
“Teach us to walk the soft Earth as relatives to all that live.”
–Sioux Prayer
“The Holy Land is everywhere”
–Black Elk, Lakota Sioux Nation
“The Great Spirit is in all things, he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us, that which we put into the ground she returns to us.”
–Big Thunder, Wabanaki Algonquin Nation
“Walk lightly in the spring; Mother Earth is pregnant.”
– Unknown, Kiowa Nation Proverb
“The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.”
–Chief Joseph
“We live, we die, and like the grass and trees, renew ourselves from the soft Earth of the grave. Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born. The faith of the villages is dust now… but it will grow again… like the trees.”
–Chief Joseph, Nez Perce Nation
“I love the land of winding waters more than all the rest of the world. A man who would not love his father’s grave is worse than a wild animal.”
–Chief Joseph, Nez Perce Nation
“Only to the white man was nature a wilderness, and only to him was the land infested’ with wild animals and savage people. To us it was tame, Earth was bountiful, and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery.”
–Black Elk, Oglala Lakota Sioux Nation
“The ground on which we stand is sacred ground. It is the dust and blood of our ancestors.”
–Chief Plenty Coups, Crow Nation
“We are the natural nurturers of the Earth Mother. The Earth Mother needs our help, she needs our prayers.”
–Agnes Baker-Pilgrim, Takelma Nation
“The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.”
–Unknown, Native American Proverb
“I was warmed by the sun, rocked by the winds and sheltered by the trees, as other Indian babes. I can go everywhere with a good feeling.” –Geronimo, Apache Nation
“The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die. That is, the Indian in us dies.”
–Mary Brave Bird, Sicangu Oyate Lakota Sioux Nation
“The ground on which we stand is sacred ground. It is the blood of our ancestors.”
–Plenty Coups, Crow Nation
The Great Spirit is in all things: he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our father, but the Earth is our mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us.”
–Big Thunder Wabanaki, Algonquin Nation
“When man moves away from nature, his heart becomes hard.”
–Luther Standing Bear, Lakota Sioux Nation
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2 Responses
Really nice bouquet of quotes. It absolutely resonated with me. Thank you.
They did with me too! Thank you for your comment.