The scientist does not study nature because it is useful—he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living. Of course I do not here speak of that beauty which strikes the senses, the beauty of quality and of appearance; not that I undervalue such beauty, far from it, but it has nothing to do with science; I mean that profound beauty which comes from the harmonious order of the parts and which a pure intelligence can grasp.
Jules Henri Poincaré
Perfection and beauty in Nature is implied through complex and even magical dynamic organization, symmetry, equal division, and other perfect mathematical forms and notions. I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey - work of the stars.
Walt Whitman
The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.
Rachel Carson
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
Rachel Carson
For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.
Martin Luther King
Not to have known-- as most men have not-either the mountain or the desert is not to have known one's self. Not to have known one's self is to have known no one.
Joseph Wood Krutch
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.
Sir John Lubbock
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
John Muir
How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
John Muir
Nine planets round the sun, only one does the sun embrace. Upon this watered one, so much we take for granted; so let us sleep outside tonight, lay down in our mother's arms, for here we can rest safely. One sweet world around a star is spinning - One sweet world - And in her breath I'm swimming, and here we will rest in peace.
