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Nature: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor!— SCOTT — Rob Roy. Ch. XXXIV.

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.— Shakespeare — Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 17.

I do beseech you- Chiefly, that I might set it in my prayers- What is your name?— Shakespeare — Tempest. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 32.

Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words- * * * * * * Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.— Shakespeare — Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 51.

The one so like the other As could not be distinguish'd but by names.— Shakespeare — Comedy of Errors. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 52.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. S.— Shakespeare — Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 43.

And last of all an Admiral came, A terrible man with a terrible name,一 A name which you all know by sight very well; But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.— SOUTHEY — The March to Moscow. St. 8.

I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade. น.— SWIFT — Polite Conversation.

Dialogue II. Charmed with the foolish whistling of a name.— VIRGIL — Georgics. Bk. II. L. 72.

Cowley's trans.

If there's a power above us, (and that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works) he must delight in virtue.— ADDISON — Cato. Act V. Sc. 1.

Nature's great law, and law of all men's minds?- To its own impulse every creature stirs; Live by thy light, and earth will live by hers!— MATTHEW ARNOLD — Religious Isolation. St. 4.

Nature means Necessity.— BAILEY — Festus. Dedication.

The course of Nature seems a course of Death, And nothingness the whole substantial thing.— BAILEY — Festus. Sc. Water and Wood.

Out of the book of Nature's learned breast.— DU BARTAS — Divine Weekes and Workes.

Second Week. Fourth Day. Bk. II. L. 566. At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill, And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove.— BEATTIE — The Hermit.

Nature too unkind; That made no medicine for a troubled mind!— BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER — Philaster.

C. Act III. Sc. 1. Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature, they being both servants of his providence: art is the perfection of nature; were the world now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos; nature hath made one world, and art another. In brief, all things are artificial; for nature is the art of God.— SIR THOMAS BROWNE — Religio Medici. Pt. XVI.

Rich with the spoils of nature.— SIR THOMAS BROWNE — Religio Medici. Pt. XIII.

There are no grotesques in nature; not anything framed to fill up empty cantons, and unnecessary spaces.— SIR THOMAS BROWNE — Religio Medici. Pt. XV.

"There is no God," the foolish saith, But none, "There is no sorrow," And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow.— E. B. BROWNING — The Cry of the

Human. I trust in Nature for the stable laws Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant And Autumn garner to the end of time. I trust in God-the right shall be the right And other than the wrong, while he endures; I trust in my own soul, that can perceive The outward and the inward, Nature's good And God's.— ROBERT BROWNING — A Soul's Tragedy. Act I.

Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.— BRYANT — Thanatopsis.

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms. she speaks A various language.— BRYANT — Thanatopsis.

See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.— BURTON — Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. I. Sec. 2. Memb.4. Subsec. 7.

Nature vicarye of the Almighty Lord.— CHAUCER — Parlement of Foules. L. 379.

Not without art, but yet to Nature true.— CHURCHILL — The Rosciad. L. 699.

Nature, exerting an unwearied power, Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower; Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.— COWPER — Table Talk. L. 690.

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilarate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid Nature.— COWPER — The Task. Bk. I. The Sofa. L. 187.

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.— CHARLES DARWIN — The Origin of Species. Ch. III.

By viewing nature, nature's handmaid, art, Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow; Thus fishes first to shipping did impart, Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.— DRYDEN — Annus Mirabilis. St. 155.

Whate'er he did, was done with so much ease, In him alone 't was natural to please.— DRYDEN — Absalom and Achitophel. Pt. I. L. 27.

Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view? S.— JOHN DYER — Grongar Hill. L. 102.

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave One scent to hyson and to wall-flower, One sound to pine-groves and to water-falls, One aspect to the desert and the lake. It was her stern necessity: all things Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower, Song, picture, form, space, thought, and character Deceive us, seeming to be many things, And are but one.— EMERSON — Xenophones.

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.— EMERSON — Essays. First Series.

History. Nature seems to wear one universal grin.— HENRY FIELDING — Tom Thumb the Great. Act I. Sc. 1.

As distant prospects please us, but when near We find but desert rocks and fleeting air.— SIR SAM'L GARTH — The Dispensary. Canto III. L. 27.

Over the hills and far away.— GAY — The Beggar's Opera. Act I. Sc. 1. (Air.)

To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art.— C. GOLDSMITH — Deserted Village. L. 253.

E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.— GRAY — Elegy in a Country Churchyard. St. 23.

That undefined and mingled hum, Voice of the desert never dumb!— HOGG — Verses to Lady Anne Scott.

No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer's day Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.— KEATS — Hyperion. Bk. I. L. 7.

Nature with folded hands seemed there, Kneeling at her evening prayer!— LONGFELLOW — Voices of the Night. Prelude. St. 11.

No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.— LONGFELLOW — Sunrise on the Hills. L. 35.

O what a glory doth this world put on For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks On duties well performed, and days well spent! For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves, Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings.— LONGFELLOW — Autumn. L. 30.

So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go, Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.— LONGFELLOW — Nature. L. 9.

The natural alone is permanent.— LONGFELLOW — Kavanagh. Ch. XIII.

His Nature's a glass of champagne with the foam on 't, As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont; So his best things are done in the flash of the moment.— LOWELL — A Fable for Critics. L. 834.

But on and up, where Nature's heart Beats strong amid the hills. RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (Lord Houghton)-Tragedy of the Lac de Gaube. St. 2. Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part; Do thou but thine!— MILTON — Paradise Lost. Bk. VIII. L. 561.

And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.— MILTON — Paradise Lost. Bk. VIII, L. 263.

And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons.— MILTON — Comus. L. 727.

Into this wild abyss, The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave.— MILTON — Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 910.

Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.— MONTAIGNE — Essays. Experience.

And not from Nature up to Nature's God, But down from Nature's God look Nature through. S.— ROBERT MONTGOMERY — Luther.

A Landscape of Domestic Life. There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.— MOORE — The Meeting of the Waters.

And we, with Nature's heart in tune, Concerted harmonies.— WM. MOTHERWELL — Jeannie Morrison.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; That chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth as in th' ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 267.

All Nature is but art unknown to thee; All chance direction, which thou canst not see.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 289.

Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 13.

Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool Earth, my canopy the skies.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 139.

See plastic Nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to, the next in place Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. III. L. 9.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. IV. L. 331.

Oh, Brignall banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there Would grace a summer queen. ScoTT-Rokeby. Canto III. St. 16. Some touch of Nature's genial glow.— SCOTT — Lord of the Isles. Canto III. St. 14.

And Nature does require Her times of preservation, which perforce I, her frail son, amongst my brethern mortal, Must give my tendance to.— Shakespeare — Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 147.

Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions.— Shakespeare — Henry IV. Pt. I. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 27.

How hard it is to hide the sparks of Nature!— Shakespeare — Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 79.

How sometimes Nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms!— Shakespeare — Winter's Tale. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 151.

In Nature's infinite book of secrecy A little I can read.— Shakespeare — Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 9.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.— Shakespeare — Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 175.

To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to Nature; to shew virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 24.

Yet nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean: so, over that art Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes.— Shakespeare — Winter's Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 89.

My banks they are furnish'd with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep; My grottoes are shaded with trees, And my hills are white over with sheep.— SHENSTONE — A Pastoral Ballad. Pt. II. Hope.

Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.— R. B. SHERIDAN — The Critic. Act II. Sc. 1.

For all that Nature by her mother-wit Could frame in earth.— SPENSER — Faerie Queene. Bk. IV. Canto X. St. 21.

What more felicitie can fall to creature Than to enjoy delight with libertie, And to be lord of all the workes of Nature, To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie, To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature.— SPENSER — The Fate of the Butterfly. L. 209.

Yet neither spinnes, nor cards, ne cares nor fretts, But to her mother Nature all her care she letts.— SPENSER — Faerie Queene. Bk. II. Bk. II. Canto VI.

Once, when the days were ages, And the old Earth was young, The high gods and the sages From Nature's golden pages Her open secrets wrung. S.— R. H. STODDARD — Brahma's Answer.

Here are cool mosses deep, And thro' the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.— TENNYSON — The Lotos-Eaters. Choric Song. Pt. I.

Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.— TENNYSON — The Princess. Canto VII. L. 205.

Nothing in Nature is unbeautiful.— TENNYSON — The Lover's Tale. L. 348.

But who can paint Like Nature? Can imagination boast, Amid its gay creation, hues like hers? Or can it mix them with that matchless skill, And lose them in each other, as appears In every bud that blows?— THOMSON — The Seasons. Spring. L. 465.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace, cannot You cannot shut the windows of the sky, shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve.— THOMSON — The Castle of Indolence. Canto II. St. 3.

O Nature! *** Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works; Snatch me to Heaven.— THOMSON — The Seasons. Autumn. L. 1,352.

Rocks rich in gems, and Mountains big with mines, That on the high Equator, ridgy, rise, Whence many a bursting Stream auriferous plays. C.— THOMSON — The Seasons. Summer. L. 646.

Nature is always wise in every part.— LORD THURLOW — Select Poems. The

Harvest Moon. Divine Nature gave the fields, human art built the cities.— VARRO — De re Rustica. III. 1.

Talk not of temples, there is one Built without hands, to mankind given; Its lamps are the meridian sun And all the stars of heaven, Its walls are the cerulean sky, Its floor the earth so green and fair, The dome its vast immensity; All Nature worships there!— DAVID VEDDER — The Temple of Nature.

In such green palaces the first kings reign'd, Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd; With such old counsellors they did advise, And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.— EDMUND WALLER — On St. James' Park. L. 71.

Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot of earth, Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it hath witnessed; render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!— WORDSWORTH — The Excursion. Bk. VI.

And recognizes ever and anon The breeze of Nature stirring in his soul.— WORDSWORTH — The Excursion. Bk. IV.

As in the eye of Nature he has lived, So in the eye of Nature let him die!— WORDSWORTH — The Old Cumberland

Beggar. Last Lines.

Meliora sunt ea quæ naturâ quam illa quæ arte perfecta sunt. Things perfected by nature are better than those finished by art.— CICERO — De Natura Deorum. II. 34.

Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurrit. You may turn nature out of doors with violence, but she will still return.— HORACE — Epistolæ. I. 10. 24.

Pecuniam in loco negligere maximum est lucrum. To despise money on some occasions is a very great gain.— TERENCE — Adelphi. II. 2. 8.

Natura semina scientiæ nobis dedit, scientiam non dedit. Nature has given us the seeds of knowledge, not knowledge itself.— SENECA — Epistolæ Ad Lucilium. CXX.

Nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos, Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc formosissimus annus. Now every field and every tree is in bloom. The woods are in full leaf, and the year in its highest beauty.— VIRGIL — Eclogæ. III. 56.

Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop. Drive the natural away, it returns at a gallop.— DESTOUCHES — Glorieux. V. 3.

Blumen, Blätter, Früchte sind also aus Luft gewebte Kinder des Lichts. Flowers, leaves, fruit are therefore airwoven children of light.— MOLESCHOTT — Licht und Leben. P. 29.

Der Schein soll niedie Wirklichkeit erreichen Und siegt Natur, so muss die Kunst entweichen. The ideal should never touch the real; When nature conquers, Art must then give way.— SCHILLER — To GOETHE when he put

C. VOLTAIRE'S Mahomet on the Stage. St. 6. Warum wird mir auf einmal lieblich helle, Als wenn im nächt'gen Wald uns Mondenglanz umweht? Whence all around me glows the air so brightly, As when in woods at night the mellow moonbeam lies?— GOETHE — Faust. I. 1. 336.