Quotes on Nature

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;_x000D_ _x000D_ Our meddling intellect_x000D_ _x000D_ Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things_x000D_ _x000D_ We murder to dissect._x000D_ _x000D_ Enough of Science and of Art;_x000D_ _x000D_ Close up these barren leaves;_x000D_ _x000D_ Come forth, and bring with you a heart_x000D_ _x000D_ That watches and receives.

Questions of personal priority, however interesting they may be to the persons concerned, sink into insignificance in the prospect of any gain of deeper insight into the secrets of nature.

Nothing is lost and nothing is created in the operations of art as those of nature.

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

Nature does nothing without a purpose. In children may be observed the traces and seeds of what will one day be settled psychological habits, though psychologically a child hardly differs for the time being from an animal.

Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.

Man is everywhere a disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords.

In nature's infinite book of secrecy_x000D_ _x000D_ A little I can read.

In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place.

God put a secret art into the forces of Nature so as to enable it to fashion itself out of chaos into a perfect world system.

For nature by the same cause, provided it remain in the same condition, always produces the same effect, so that either coming-to-be or passing-away will always result.

Deformed persons commonly take revenge on nature.

And nature must obey necessity.

A man should carry nature in his head.

The physician heals, Nature makes well.

Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical purpose, and, I daresay, an aesthetic purpose.

You may object that by speaking of simplicity and beauty I am introducing aesthetic criteria of truth, and I frankly admit that I am strongly attracted by the simplicity and beauty of mathematical schemes which nature presents us. You must have felt this too: the almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of the relationship, which nature suddenly spreads out before us.

Let every student of nature take this as his rule, that whatever the mind seizes upon with particular satisfaction is to be held in suspicion.

When an investigator has developed a formula which gives a complete representation of the phenomena within a certain range, he may be prone to satisfaction. Would it not be wiser if he should say 'Foiled again! I can find out no more about Nature along this line.'

It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature may shout INCONSISTENT.