Nature alone can speak to our intelligence an imperishable language, never changing, because it remains within the bounds of eternal truth and of what is absolutely noble and beautiful.

Our Nation, a great stage for the acting out of great thoughts, presents the classic confrontation between Locke's views of the state of nature and Rousseau's criticism of them... Nature is raw material, worthless without the mixture of human labor; yet nature is also the highest and most sacred thing. The same people who struggle to save the snail-darter bless the pill, worry about hunting deer and defend abortion. Reverence for nature, mastery of nature- whichever is convenient.

A tree is only as good as the seed it is stems from.

A tree is only as good as the seed it is stems from.

A chronic poet should always be an inveterate nature-lover.

God can and does use anything God chooses to get our attention. Who's to say the hawk wasn't sent as an agent of grace to catch my wandering attention and quiet what Buddhists might call my “monkey mind,” which is more often than not swinging wildly from branch to branch on intellectual and emotional trees. On the way back down the hiking trail after my encounter with the hawk in Big Sky, I stopped thinking and started looking and listening. That's when I realized winter was turning into spring before me. Change was happening. Creation, and perhaps the Creator, was speaking. I just needed to be outside to hear the voice.

So the thing I realized rather gradually - I must say starting about 20 years ago now that we know about computers and things - there's a possibility of a more general basis for rules to describe nature.

Five minutes after something happened might not be the best time for you to get into your Facebook and tell everybody. Men's panic does not produce God's power.

Let us imitate nature—not each other.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.