Proverbs from Nature

Emerson believes observations of nature form our thinking and our language

What can we learn about human nature and about our key concepts that inform human understanding from these proverbs / saying from observations of nature?

1 A dripping June sets all in tune. -- unknown

2 The early bird gets the worm, the second mouse gets the cheese. -- unknown

One step leads to another. -- unknown

3 One swallow never makes a summer. -- John Heywood (c.1497-1580)

The afternoon knows what the morning never expected. -- Swedish (on basic truths)

The day has eyes; the night has ears. -- Scottish (on nature)

4 The sap rises in the spring. -- unknown

5 When the wind is in the east, tis neither good for man nor beast. -- unknown

You can drive out nature with a pitchfork but she keeps on coming back. -- Horace (65-8 BC)

6 The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure. -- D. H. Lawrence

7 Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. -- Blaise Pascal

8 Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. -- Albert Einstein

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. -- Ralph Waldo EmersonNature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. -- Lao Tzu

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. -- Aristotle

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. -- George Washington Carver

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 off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail. -- John Muir

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. --Henry David Thoreau

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another. -- Juvenal

I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God. -- Alan Hovhaness

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere. -- Vincent Van Gogh

Some of nature's most exquisite handiwork is on a miniature scale, as anyone knows who has applied a magnifying glass to a snowflake. -- Rachel Carson

The beauty of the natural world lies in the details. -- Natalie Angier

There is new life in the soil for every man. There is healing in the trees for tired minds and for our overburdened spirits, there is strength in the hills, if only we will lift up our eyes. Remember that nature is your great restorer. -- Calvin Coolidge

All those who love Nature she loves in return, and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called, but with the best things of this world-not with money and titles, horses and carriages, but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind. -- John Lubbock

Man is Nature's sole mistake. -- W.S. Gilbert

Munificent nature follows the methods of the divine and true, and rounds all things to her perfect law. While nations are convulsed with blood and violence, how quietly the grass grows. -- E.H. Chapin

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. -- Anne Frank

Nature is indifferent to our love, but never unfaithful. -- Edward Abbey

Nature is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities, as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite. -- Joseph Addison

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man. -- Henry Brooks Adams

Lay aside all conceit. Learn to read the book of nature for yourself. Those who have succeeded best have followed for years some slim thread which has once in a while broadended out and disclosed some treasure worth a life-long search -- Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz

Nature is the armory of genius. Cities serve it poorly, books and colleges at second hand; the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon; of mountain, ocean, river and plain, the clouds and stars; actual contact with the elements, sympathy with the seasons as they rise and roll. -- Amos Bronson Alcott

Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion. -- Lorraine Anderson

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative. -- H.G. Wells

You think Nature is some Disney movie? Nature is a killer.. 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. -- Jeff Melvoin

In nature there are neither rewards or punishments - there are consequences. -- Robert Green Ingersoll

It's amazing how quickly nature consumes human places after we turn our backs on them. Life is a hungry thing. --Scott Westerfeld

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own. -- Charles Dickens

Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy. -- Isaac NewtonWe do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. -- William Hazlett

Nature is not a place to visit. It is home. -- Gary Snyder

Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!' -- Robin Williams

Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy - your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself. -- Annie Leibovitz

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. -- Henry David Thoreau

Mother Nature is always speaking. She speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer. -- Radhanath Swami

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The laws of nature are written deep in the folds and faults of the earth. By encouraging men to learn those laws one can lead them further to a knowledge of the author of all laws. -- John Joseph Lynch

Nature abhors a vacuum. -- Baruch Spinoza

When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature, then temples, mosques and churches become important. -- Jiddu Krishnamurti

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble. -- Blaise Pascal

Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels. -- Luigi Pirandello

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment. --R. Buckminster Fuller

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries. -- Jimmy Carter

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished. -- Sir Francis Bacon

Expect Nature to answer to your human values as to come into your house and sit in a chair. The economy of nature, its checks and balances, its measurements of competing life - all this is its great marvel and has an ethic of its own. --Henry Beston