Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The thing that gave me the most pain in life, psychologically, and it gave me tremendous pain psychologically, is man's disrespect for nature.
Perhaps we too seldom reflect how much the life of Nature is one with the life of man, how unimportant or indeed merely seeming, the difference between them.
By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.
Christianity has aimed to deliver us from a life determined by nature, from the appetites as actuating us, and so has meant that man should not let himself be determined by appetites.
It is not always possible or even right for a man to make his wife number one in his life. This is due to the nature of his life. His number one responsibility is to provide the living.
Christianity has aimed to deliver us from a life determined by nature, from the appetites as actuating us, and so has meant that man should not let himself be determined by his appetites.
It is not accidental that all phenomena of human life are dominated by the search for daily bread - the oldest link connecting all living things, man included, with the surrounding nature.
The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.
In coming closer to nature, man shows himself superior to it. As a mere part of nature, man's existence would be a series of isolated phenomena. All life would proceed from and depend on contact with the outside world.
After a summer trip to Switzerland, which was rich in experiences, I started writing. In the beginning, I aimed at descriptions of nature and folk life until, as the years passed, the description of man became my chief interest.
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
Before the tribunal of nature, a man has no more right to life than a rattlesnake; he has no more right to liberty than any wild beast; his right to the pursuit of happiness is nothing but a license to maintain the struggle for existence, if he can find within himself the powers with which to do it.