Natural Resilience Quotes

Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold? The tree says to the leaf: "That’s the cycle of life. You may think you’re going to die, but you live on in me. It’s thanks to you that I’m alive, because I can breathe. It’s also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing.

When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured.

Nature works with five polymers. Only five polymers. In the natural world, life builds from the bottom up, and it builds in resilience and multiple uses.

To be endowed with strength by nature, to be actuated by the powers of the mind, and to have a certain spirit almost divine infused into you.

Annual plants are nature's emergency medical service, seeded in sounds and scars to hold the land until the perennial cover is re-established.

The natural world is so adaptable...So adaptable you wonder what's natural.

Listen," he said. "If you was a fish, Mother Nature'd take care of you, wouldn't she? Right? You don't think them fish just die when it gets to be winter, do ya?" No, but--" You're goddam right they don't

We'll dive into the earth together. And if one day a wild flower finds water and springs up from that piece of earth, its stem will have two blooms for sure: one will be you, the other me.

I've always been more interested in organisms that can move on their own than in stationary plants. But when I canoe or hike along the edge of lakes or oceans and see trees that seem to be growing out of rock faces, I am blown away. How do they do it?

Grass is the forgiveness of nature - her constant benediction. Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal...Its tenacious fibers hold the earth in place and prevent its soluble components from washing to the wasting sea.

I always knew there was power in the earth, but it must be much stronger than I imagined to resist such a relentless foe, day after day, night after night, year after year.

What a friend we have in a tree, the tree is the symbol of hope, self improvement and what people can do for themselves.

The tree doesn't die, nor do I when you cut off a branch or a finger, we both heal so we don't lose all the sap or blood. That to me is total shock. Also that water defies the laws of physics by becoming less dense when frozen. Life really is a miracle and all the things that are been built into us through it.

Eloquent testimony to the recovery powers of wild animals frequently becomes apparent from the study of skeletons housed in museums.

It's easy to forget how powerful our bodies actually are.

Enormous and solid but swaying, beaten by the wind but chained, murmur of a million leaves against my window. Riot of trees, surge of dark green sounds. The grove, suddenly still, is a web of fronds and branches.

Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.

Planet Earth is far more resilient than humans and will certainly outlive us.

Nature is a source of strength.

Wildflowers don't care where they grow.

Most infants are geniuses. They're indomitable, fearless, and completely in harmony with a cosmic proclivity for growth. They're heroes because they walk directly through adversity with love and ardent resolve.

The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

The soil under the grass is dreaming of a young forest, and under the pavement the soil is dreaming of grass.