This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends." - Johann Kaspar Lavater
"There are never in nature two beings which are exactly alike." - Gottfried Leibniz, fully Gottfried Wilhalm von Leibniz, Baron von Leibnitz
"The reason for the sublime simplicity in the works of nature lies all too often in the sublime shortsightedness in the observer." - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
"Happiness is the greatest paradox in nature. It can grow in any soil, live under any condition. It defies environment. The reason for this is that it does not come from without but from within. Whenever you see a person seeking happiness outside himself, you can be sure he has never found it." - William George Jordan
"Although generalizations are dangerous, I venture to say that at the bottom of most fears, both mild and severe, will be found an overactive mind and an underactive body. Hence, I have advised many people, in their quest for happiness, to use their heads less and their arms and legs more... in useful work or play. We generate fears while we sit; we overcome them in action. Fear is nature's warning signal to get busy." - Henry C. Link
"A man cannot sleep in his cradle: whatever is useful must in the nature of life become useless." - Walter Lippmann
"The works of nature and the works of revelation display religion to mankind in characters so large and visible that those who are not quite blind may in them see and read the first principles and most necessary parts of it, and from thence penetrate into those infinite depths filled with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." - John Locke
"By sadness you destroy the divine image in your soul. God is joy. All nature rejoices in him, and would you be sad? A true joy makes the heart fear God." - Ambroise de Lombez, Jean de La Peyrie, aka Brother Ambrose, Father Ambrose of Lombez the Enlightenment
"War is no more inevitable than the plague is inevitable. War is no more a part of human nature than the burning of witches is a human act." - Nancy Gentile Ford
"Making one object, in outward or inward nature, more holy to a single heart is reward enough for a life; for the more sympathies we gain or awaken for what is beautiful, by so much deeper will be our sympathy for that which is most beautiful." - James Russell Lowell
"How little nature demands. Running water and bread are enough for mankind." - Lucan, full name Marcus Annaeus Lucanus NULL
"For it is unknown what is the real nature of the soul, whether it be born with the bodily frame or be infused at the moment of birth, whether it perishes along with us, when death separates the soul and body, or whether it visits the shades of Pluto and bottomless pits, or enters by divine appointment into other animals." - Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL
"Society's preservation and man's happiness depend on illusion. Nature itself, which certainly represents the will of God, deludes us in many respects, as when it leads us by the cords of love to reproduce the race. If a youth would consider the trouble in rearing a family, not one in a thousand would marry, but nature closes our eyes to the future (and indeed, wherever popular knowledge rises, the birth rate declines). The same is true of the other passions, which nature utilizes to deceive man and goad them toward the attainment of ends which, when attained, turn out to be but vanity." - Samuel David Luzzatto, aka by acronym of SHaDaL or SHeDaL
"Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
"To look fearlessly upon life; to accept the laws of nature, not with meek resignation, but as her sons, who dare to search and question; to have peace and confidence within our souls - these are the beliefs that make for happiness." - Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
"Freedom of investigation is a fundamental natural right, for man’s very nature is to seek the truth." - Jacques Maritain
"It is the limitation of our awareness that would classify certain phenomena or abilities as metaphysical. Our awareness about what Nature is all about is grossly limited. Whatever is outside these limitations we tend to call metaphysical and then define as something beyond the scope of science and reason." - Kyriacos C. Markides
"To love our parents is the first law of nature." - Valerius Maximus
"As ages roll on there is doubtless a progression in human nature. The intellectual comes to rule the physical, and the moral claims to subordinate both. It is no longer strength of body that prevails, but strength of mind; while the law of God proclaims itself superior to both." - James McCosh
"I look upon enthusiasm, in all other points but that of religion, to be a very necessary turn of mind; as indeed it is a vein which nature seems to have marked with more or less strength, in the tempers of most men. No matter what the object is, whether business, pleasures or the fine arts: whoever pursues them to any purpose must do con amore." -
"Beauty is the first present Nature gives to women, and the first it takes away." - George Brossin Méré, chevalier de
"For art is nature made by man to man the interpreter of God." - Owen Meredith, pseudonym for Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
"Leave a little to nature: she understands her business better than we do." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom... It may be said with some plausibility that there is an abecedarian (meaning alphabetically or rudimentary) ignorance that comes before knowledge, and another doctoral ignorance that comes after knowledge; ignorance that knowledge creates and engenders, just as it undoes and destroys the first." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"Constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go... To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
"In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by protection of the laws." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
"Mankind must not be governed with too much severity; we ought to make a prudent use of the means which nature has given us to conduct them. If we inquire into the cause of all human corruptions, we shall find that they proceed form the impunity of criminals, and not from the moderation of punishments." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
"The institutions of a country depend in great measure on the nature of its soil and situation. Many of the wants of man are awakened or supplied by these circumstances. To these wants, manners, laws, and religion must shape and accommodate themselves. The division of land, and the rights attached to it, alter with the soil; the laws relating to its produce, with its fertility. The manners of its inhabitants are in various ways modified by its position. The religion of a miner is not the same as the faith of a shepherd, nor is the character of the ploughman so war-like as that of the hunter. The observant legislator follows the direction of all these various circumstances. the knowledge of the natural advantages or defects of a country thus form an essential part of political science and history." - Justus Möser
"Extensive moralizing within the ecological movement has given the public the false impression that they are being asked to make a sacrifice - to show more responsibility, more concern, and a nicer moral standard. But all of that would flow naturally and easily if the self were widened and deepened so that the protection of nature was felt and perceived as protection of our very selves." - Arne Dekke Eide Naess
"The light of the sun, the light of the moon, and the light of the air, in nature, and substance are one and the same light, and yet they are there distinct lights: the light of the sun being of itself, and from none; the light of the moon from the sun; and the light of the air from them both. So the Divine Nature is one, and the persons three; subsisting, after a diverse manner, in one and the same Nature." - Richard Newton
"Visible creation in time, or nature... does not exist of itself. It is not the cause of itself, but is an ever-changing copy of something which lies behind appearances. The recipient, or mother, is three-dimensional space, which must be empty of all properties in order to receive the impress of the model. The copy is in time. The model (idea) is outside our space and time." - Maurice Nicoll
"What is the standpoint of materialism?... We look outwards (via the senses) for the explanation and cause of everything. We start from phenomena as absolute truth... Materialism gives sense and physical matter priority over mind or idea... The customary standpoint of scientific materialism is that primary matter is dead - and the universe is dead and nature is dead - and a dead nature can, of course, aim at nothing. It cannot be teleological." - Maurice Nicoll
"What, then, is the nature of the reality that we believe in evidentially? Transiency is the main reality. We appear to live in an ever-perishing world. It seems that our life is confined to a single instant at a time. We see everything passing away - for ever, as we say, without having the slightest idea of what we mean by this expression. Where does everything go - for ever? Where do our lives go? Certainly they are not contained in a space of three dimensions. We witness, apparently, events, people, and things disappearing into total extinction, into an absolute nothingness, as the result of passing-time. This is the reality of appearances as registered by our senses. There goes with it a particular understanding of life." - Maurice Nicoll
"Has anyone at the end of the nineteenth century a distinct conception of what poets of strong ages call inspiration? If not, I will describe it. If one had the slightest residue of superstition left in one, one would hardly be able to set aside the idea that one is merely incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely medium of overwhelming forces. The concept of revelation , in the sense that something suddenly, with unspeakable certainty and subtlety, becomes visible, audible, something that shakes and overturns one to the depths, simply describes the fact. One hears, one does not seek; one takes, one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightning, with necessity, unfalteringly formed - I have never had any choice... Everything is in the highest degree involuntary but takes place as in a tempest of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power, of divinity... The involuntary nature of image, of metaphor is the most remarkable thing of all; one no longer has any idea what is image, what metaphor, everything presents itself as the readiest, the truest, the simplest means of expression." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"One finds in art the means whereby he may rejoice in his nature, another the means whereby he may temporarily overcome and escape from his nature. In accordance with these two needs, there are two kinds of art and artist." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"The sphere of poetry does not lie outside the world as a fantastic impossibility spawned by a poet’s brain: it desires to be just the opposite, the unvarnished expression of the truth, and must precisely for that reason discard the mendacious finery of that alleged reality of the man of culture. The contrast between this real truth of nature and the lie of culture that poses as if it were the only reality is similar to that between the eternal core of things, the thing-in-itself, and the whole world of appearances." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"To change his opinions is for one nature an expression of purity of mind, like somebody who changes his clothing; but for another nature it is only an expression of his vanity." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"In dealing with the environment we must learn now how to master nature but how to master ourselves, our institutions, and our technology." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"It is not merely the multiplicity of tints, the gladness of tone, or the balminess of the air which delight in the spring; it is the still consecrated spirit of hope, the prophecy of happy days yet to come; the endless variety of nature, with presentiments of eternal flowers which never shall fade and sympathy with the blessedness of the ever-developing world." - Novalis, pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg NULL
"Nature is an Aeolian harp, a musical instrument whose tones are the re-echo of higher stings within us." - Novalis, pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg NULL
"This world of ours is a new world, in which the unit of knowledge, the nature of human communities, the order of society, the order of ideas, the very notions of society and culture have changed, and will not return to what they have been in the past. What is new is new, not because it has never been there before, but because it has changed in quality." - Robert Oppenheimer, fully Julius Robert Oppenheimer
"Science will never be able to reduce the value of a sunset to arithmetic. Nor can it reduce friendship to a formula. Laughter and love, pain and loneliness, the challenge of accomplishment in living, and the depth of insight into beauty and truth: these will always surpass the scientific mastery of nature." - Louis Orr
"Human nature is not of itself vicious." - Thomas Paine
"Man must go back to nature for information." - Thomas Paine
"Have faith in your immortal nature. Know that you are Spirit. Those who think they are limited and mortal, that they are born and that they die, are superstitious. Anything that is weakening, anything that is degenerating, anything that tells us that we are limited human beings is a terrible superstition. By all the means in our power we must overcome it. Let us tear aside this veil of superstition, recognize our true nature, and know that we are eternal, imperishable and immortal." - Paramananda, fully Swami Paramananda, born Suresh Chandra Guha-Thakurta NULL