“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”

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 alike

Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. Here grow the wallflower and the violet. The squirrel will come and sit upon your knee, the logcock will wake you in the morning. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. Of all the upness accessible to mortals, there is no upness comparable to the mountains.

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.

People say to me so often, 'Jane how can you be so peaceful when everywhere around you people want books signed, people are asking these questions and yet you seem peaceful,' and I always answer that it is the peace of the forest that I carry inside.

You think Nature is some Disney movie? Nature is a killer. Nature is a bitch. It's feeding time out there 24 hours a day, every step that you take is a gamble with death. If it isn't getting hit with lightning today, it's an earthquake tomorrow or some deer tick carrying Lime disease. Either way, you're ending up on the wrong end of the food chain.

Mountains inspire awe in any human person who has a soul. They remind us of our frailty, our unimportance, of the briefness of our span upon this earth. They touch the heavens, and sail serenely at an altitude beyond even the imaginings of a mere mortal.

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.Nature does nothing uselessly.

And then, the unspeakable purity and freshness of the air! There was just enough heat to enhance the value of the breeze, and just enough wind to keep the whole sea in motion, to make the waves come bounding to the shore, foaming and sparkling, as if wild with glee.
Anne Bronte (1820 - 1849), Agnes Grey

Our land is more valuable than your money. As long as the sun shines and the waters flow, this land will be here to give life to men and animals; therefore, we cannot sell this land. It was put here for us by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to us.
, Blackfoot chief (c. 1880)

Nature is just enough; but men and women must comprehend and accept her suggestions.

The refreshing pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and the confinement of a sick-chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as the descriptions, of those in health.

Ann Radcliffe (1764 - 1823), The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1764

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson.

“You know why trees smell the way they do?” Murphy asked, looking up from her hammering. “Sap?” Logan guessed. “Chlorophyll?” Murphy shook her head. “Stars. Trees breathe in starlight year after year, and it goes deep into their bones. So when you cut a tree open, you smell a hundred years’ worth of light. Ancient starlight that took millions of years to reach earth. That’s why trees smell so beautiful and old.” ~ By Frances O’Roark Dowell in Where I’d like to be