I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie on the earth.

The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover it was never fish that you were after.

You must ascend a mountain to learn your relation to matter, and so to your own body, for it is at home there, though you are not.

One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however, ancient, can be trusted without proof. ... Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.