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2. “I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’”
—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
3. “Not just beautiful, though—the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me.”
—Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
—Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
4. “‘Is the spring coming?’ he said. ‘What is it like?’ …
‘It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth.’”
—Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
‘It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth.’”
—Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
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6. “If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
7. “The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another, but they are so distant, so very far apart, that they cannot feel the warmth of each other, even though they are made of burning.”
—Beth Revis, Across the Universe
—Beth Revis, Across the Universe
8. “I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’”
―Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
―Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
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10. “This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”
—John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
—John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
11. “Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”
—Mary Oliver, “Snowy Night”
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”
—Mary Oliver, “Snowy Night”
12. “Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”
―Robert Frost, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”
―Robert Frost, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”
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14. “Quiet stars and the still of expectation. The eucalyptus branches heavy with evening dew, their feet shuffling woodchips, braiding eights in the silver grass, and edging hillocks from the first mulch of fall.”
—Will Chancellor, A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall
—Will Chancellor, A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall
15. “The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can’t.”
—Christopher Paolini, Eragon
—Christopher Paolini, Eragon
16. “But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called—called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”
—Jack London, The Call of the Wild
—Jack London, The Call of the Wild
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18. “‘To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment.’”
—Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
—Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
19. “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. … There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
—Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
—Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
20. “These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.”
―Anton Chekhov, “A Day in the Country”
―Anton Chekhov, “A Day in the Country”
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22. “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”
—Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”
—Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”
23. “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.”
—John Muir, Our National Parks
—John Muir, Our National Parks
24. “I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”
—Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums source
—Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums source
