Nature soaks every evil with either fear or shame.
Interpretation
Nature influences human emotions, often invoking feelings of fear or shame in response to wrongdoing.
This quote by Tertullian suggests that nature has a profound ability to reflect human actions and moral failures. It implies that when individuals act immorally or engage in wrongdoing, nature serves as a mirror, amplifying the negative consequences of their actions through psychological responses such as fear or shame, which can lead to self-reflection and change.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about environmental ethics during a seminar.
Whatever is born is the work of God. So whatever is plastered on, is the devil's work.... How unworthy of the Christian name it is to wear a fictitious face - you on whom simplicity in every form is enjoined! You, to whom lying with the tongue is not lawful, are lying in appearance.
Examine then, and see if He be not the dispenser of kingdoms, who is Lord at once of the world which is ruled, and of man himself who rules; if He have not ordained the changes of dynasties, with their appointed seasons, who was before all time, and made the world a body of times; if the rise and the fall of states are not the work of Him, under whose sovereignty the human race once existed without states at all.
For it is really better for us not to know a thing, because [God] has not revealed it to us, than to know it according to manβs wisdom, because he has been bold enough to assume it.
The first reaction to truth is hatred.
We say, and we say openly, and while ye torture us, mangled and gory we cry out, "We worship God through Christ!" Believe Him a man: it is through Him and in Him that God willeth Himself to be known and worshipped.
Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God's plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things.
Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.
Does anything eat flowers. I couldn't recall having seen anything eat a flower - are they nature's privileged pets?
Garden making, like gardening itself, concerns the relationship of the human being to his natural surroundings.
Collective human actions are transforming, even ravaging, the biosphere - perhaps irreversibly - through global warming and loss of biodiversity.
There are few things that have filled me with such breathless awe as flying in the black of night across oceans and continents and looking out my cockpit window upon the infinite glory of millions of stars.
Sustainable fishing is a fraud. It's a marketing term that really means 'business as usual.'
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