“It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to…The feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.” - Vincent van Gogh
“Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man.” - Henry David Thoreau
“Let Nature be your teacher.” - William Wordsworth
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” - Rachel Carson
“What do parents owe their young that is more important than a warm and trusting connection to the Earth…?” - Theodore Roszak, The Voice of the Earth
“As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many eras of the earth; to see the land as an animal does; to experience the sky from the perspective of a flower or a bee; to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us; to know a hundred different smells of mud and listen unselfconsciously to the soughing of the trees.” -Valerie Andrews, A Passion for this Earth
“I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel when introducing a young child to the natural world. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil.” -Rachel Carson, A Sense of Wonderhttp://natureforkids.net/outdoor-quotes/
“Without continuous hands-on experience, it is impossible for children to acquire a deep intuitive understanding of the natural world that is the foundation of sustainable development. ….A critical aspect of the present-day crisis in education is that children are becoming separated from daily experience of the natural world, especially in larger cities.” -Natural Learning, Creating Environments for Rediscovering Nature’s Way of Teaching, Robin C. Moore and Herb H. Wong
“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune once more.” - John Burroughs
“If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, “the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings.”
-David Sobel, Beyond Ecophobia
“Man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard; [the Lakota] knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.” - Luther Standing Bear (c. 1868-1939)
“Our children no longer learn how to read the great Book of Nature from their own direct experience or how to interact creatively with the seasonal transformations of the planet. They seldom learn where their water comes from or where it goes. We no longer coordinate our human celebration with the great liturgy of the heavens.” - Wendell Berry
“To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.” - Thomas Huxley
“Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence…The voice of nature is always encouraging.” - Henry David Thoreau
“Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.” - Thomas Berry
“To trace the history of a river or a raindrop, as John Muir would have done, is also to trace the history of the soul, the history of the mind descending and arising in the body. In both, we constantly seek and stumble on divinity…” - Gretel Ehrlich
“Man must live, not only exist; he must do, not merely be; he must grow, not just vegetate.” - Spencer W. Kimball (Miracle of Forgiveness)
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” - Herodotus, Greek historian
If you have a nature quote you love share it in the comments below!
Lorie Sly says
Shawna,
I LOVE what you are doing! Thanks for your dedication to sharing and networking and promoting nature. I teach kindergarten, and this past spring I put an outdoor classroom (seven raised beds nestled in creek gravel, waterfall, observation benches, trap doors to peek at decomposers, bird baths and feeders, compost…) in an unused courtyard at our school. I am working to obtain and organize materials and curriculum for teachers and families. This year I take my class out weekly and we observe changes, search for things, raise questions, and so on. In time I’d like to create a position for myself as environmental educator for the district and take ALL kids into our garden, help organize family field trips and days OUT. Thanks again for sharing. I really enjoyed flipping about your site.
I’d also love to connect you with my neighbor, Tim Eberle, of The Leadership Ranch, in Republic, Missouri. He has a ropes course (and much more)and runs lots of school kids through on field trips. If you ever come to SW Missouri, look us up!!
Lorie Sly
shawna says
Lorie, thank you so very much for your nice comments. I think your outdoor classroom is something that should be established in every school district! Good luck with your efforts! Keep me posted on any new developments. I’d love to talk about it here at Nature For Kids. Thanks for the heads up on The Leadership Ranch. I looked into it and it looks like a great learning environment! My husband worked at a similar institute in Driggs, Idaho (Badger Creek Outdoor Learning Center) Take care - Shawna
Kelly says
Love this site!!! & great quotes!:). I love taking my kids on adventures in nature & letting them
explore!:).
Rob Bignell says
A great set of quotes. I especially like the one by Roszak. May I share a couple?
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder … he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” – Rachel Carson, “The Sense of Wonder”
“Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.” – John Muir
And this one for some hiking humor:
“We’re not lost, we’re just misplaced.” – The Man with the Yellow Hat, “Curious George”
Shawna says
Rob thank you so much for sharing those! Love em
sahil says
i like these quotes very much
Zuzana says
Thank you for the nice website. I’m sending you one of the many quotes I try to live by, think you’ll like it too. Good luck, Zuzana Czech republic (currently Cambodia)
If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter,
floating a few feet above a field somewhere,
people would come from everywhere to marvel
at it. People would walk around it marveling
at its big pools of water, its little pools and
the water flowing between. People would
marvel at the bumps on it and the holes in it.
They would marvel at the very thin layer
of gas surrounding it and the water suspended
in the gas. The people would marvel at all the
creatures walking around the surface of the ball
and at the creatures in the water. The people
would declare it as sacred because it was the
only one, and they would protect it so that it
would not be hurt. The ball would be the
greatest wonder known, and people would come
to pray to it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to
know beauty and to wonder how it could be.
People would love it, and defend it with their lives
because they would somehow know that their lives could be nothing without it.
….If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter. Joe Miller ~ Moab, Utah 1975
kyle says
cool i really learned alot.
kyle says
you can learn about nature e
kyle
spikes
homework
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Liz Bovey says
Let the children be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it is raining; let them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water; and when the grass of the meadows is wet with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath its shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning.
Maria Montessori