Reflect Nature Quotes & Sayings

My paintings are reflections of my own inner mysteries ... they all reflect my relationship to my steadiest of companions and muses - nature and animals ... — Katherine Dunn

To be sure, it was not Easter Sunday but Holy Saturday, but, the more I reflect on it, the more this seems to be fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing in the full light but walking toward it full of trust. — Pope Benedict XVI

Humans naturally reflect their nature upon the nature of their God. So to know a person, just ask what the person thinks about their God. It's either that, or an individual aims to reflect the nature of their God onto themselves; in either case, just ask about the God and you will know the person, or at least, what the person thinks of himself. — C. JoyBell C.

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about and with worms crawling through the damp earth and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms so different from each other and dependent on each other and so complex a manner have all been produced by laws acting around us. — Charles Darwin

All novels are about crime. You'd be hard pressed to find any novel that does not have an element of crime. I don't see myself as a crime novelist, but there are crimes in my books. That's the nature of storytelling, if you want to reflect the real world. — Carl Hiaasen

Flowers magnetize us with their beauty and reflect back to us our own essence. Their qualities magnify positive aspects of ourselves. They serve as messengers to remind us of the preciousness of life at the most crucial times of our lives. Flowers are doing this for us all the time, and all we have to do is pay attention. — Katie Hess

The human mind is a product of the Pleistocene age, shaped by wildness that has all but disappeared. If we complete the destruction of nature, we will have succeeded in cutting ourselves off from the source of sanity itself. Hermetically sealed amidst our creations and bereft of those of the
Creation, the world then will reflect only the demented image of the mind imprisoned within itself. Can the mind doting on itself and its creations be sane? — Edward O. Wilson

I have begun with the assumption that the Orient is not an inert fact of nature. It is not merely there, just as the Occident itself is not just there either. We must take seriously Vico's great observation that men make their own history, that what they can know is what they have made, and extend it to geography: as both geographical and cultural entities - to say nothing of historical entities - such locales, regions, geographical sectors as "Orient" and "Occident" are man-made. Therefore as much as the West itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West. The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other. — Edward W. Said

Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of saints. — Blaise Pascal

The nature of my work is my subjectivity meshed with other people's subjectivity. So there's a correspondence with that ... Even if you write about me, it will reflect on you; everything is a kind of weird collaboration. — Tino Sehgal

What we call "the laws of nature" merely reflect the normal way in which God sustains or governs the natural world. Perhaps the most wicked concept that has captured the minds of modern people is the belief that the universe operates by chance. That is the nadir of foolishness. Elsewhere, I have written more extensively on the scientific impossibility of assigning power to chance, because chance is simply a word that describes mathematical possibilities.* Chance is not a thing. It has no power. It cannot do anything, and therefore it cannot influence anything, yet some have taken the word chance, which has no power, and diabolically used it as a replacement for the concept of God. But the truth, as the Bible makes clear, is that nothing happens by chance and that all things are under the sovereign government of God, which is exceedingly comforting to the Christian who understands it. — R.C. Sproul

Our environment, including the physical body, reflect our inner state - what we are inwardly, our eternal nature. When we renew our mind and transform ourselves, our environment responds to this change automatically. — Thomas Vazhakunnathu

Wherever you are, with whatever means you have, if you reclaim a piece of land for nature, your world will grow kinder, more benevolent. Create havens - for animals, for other people, for yourself - and let this reflect into the world. Fight for space in your own backyard, in an acre or a flowerpot or simply an embrace of the longing for company that lingers in your wilting heart. If you take this one step toward them, no matter where you are, the elephants will come to you. — Boyd Varty

When we walk the streets at night in safety, it does not strike us that this might be otherwise. This habit of feeling safe has become second nature, and we do not reflect on just how this is due solely to the working of special institutions. Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together, but in fact its only bond is the fundamental sense of order which everybody possesses. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

While ritual, emotion and reasoning are all significant aspects of human nature, the most nearly unique human characteristic is the ability to associate abstractly and to reason. Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are the emotional hallmarks of our species; and the most characteristically human activities are mathematics, science, technology, music and the arts
a somewhat broader range of subjects than is usually included under the "humanities." Indeed, in its common usage this very word seems to reflect a peculiar narrowness of vision about what is human. Mathematics is as much a "humanity" as poetry. — Carl Sagan

As a working definition of art, I lean toward Tolstoy's: "Art is a human activity having for it's purpose the transmission to other of the highest and best feelings to which mankind has risen." It seems to me that, regarding agrarian art, the farther it moves away from the natural world, especially when the main goal is money profits, the more difficult it becomes for it to reflect "the highest and best feelings" of humanity. The same is true of, of course, of agriculture itself. The farther it tries to remove itself from nature in search of money, the more it moves away from the highest and healthiest kinds of food. — Gene Logsdon

The natural sciences are sometimes said to have no concern with values, nor to seek morality and goodness, and therefore belong to an inferior order of things. Counter-claims are made that they are the only living and dynamic studies ... Both contentions are wrong. Language, Literature and Philosophy express, reflect and contemplate the world. But it is a world in which men will never be content to stay at rest, and so these disciplines cannot be cut off from the great searching into the nature of things without being deprived of life-blood. — Cyril Norman Hinshelwood

Our nature gives us purpose, to reflect and act upon, responsibly by choice. — Xavier Rosseel

When I talk about a political revolution, what I am referring to is the need to do more than just win the next election. It's about creating a situation where we are involving millions of people in the process who are not now involved, and changing the nature of media so they are talking about issues that reflect the needs and the pains that so many of our people are currently feeling. A campaign has got to be much more than just getting votes and getting elected. It has got to be helping to educate people, organize people. If we can do that, we can change the dynamic of politics for years and years to come. If 80 to 90 percent of the people in this country vote, if they know what the issues are (and make demands based on that knowledge), Washington and Congress will look very, very different from the Congress currently dominated by big money and dealing only with the issues that big money wants them to deal with. — Bernie Sanders

No one, from pontiffs to professors, has a monopoly on the truth. In the end, we are all just travelers
not scientists or mystics or any one brand of thinker. By nature, we are scientists and mystics, reductionists and holists, left-brained and right-brained, mixed up creatures trying to catch an occasional glimpse of the truth. The best we can do is to be tolerant of both sides of our nature
knowing that these reflect the twin aspect of the universe
and learn from whatever wisdom is offered. — David Darling

We see ourselves in other people's eyes. It's the nature of the human race; we are a species of reflection, hungry for it in every facet of our existence.
Maybe that's why vampires seem so monstrous to us - they cast no reflection. Parents, if they're good ones, reflect the wonder of our existence and the success we can become. Friends, well chosen, show us pretty pictures of ourselves, and encourage us to grow into them.
The Beast shows us the very worst in ourselves and makes us know it's true . — Karen Marie Moning

When I'm drunk with feeling and nature is drinking from my lips and we reflect each other in our atmospheres, then my words come effortlessly and my fingers go into labor ... day or night. — Brandi L. Bates

Resilience, timing, adaptation - these are the three pillars upon which the emergent properties of interacting systems rest. When the systems are the economy and the environment, understanding of the relationships among these concepts is crucial. This volume does a better job of explaining how to manage both money and nature to ensure humanity's long-term future than any other work I know of. Read and reflect. — John L. Casti

WHEN RELIGION CANNOT KNEEL Aristotle said democracy would only work in a culture already committed to virtue. There is no communal myth left that teaches us the essentially tragic nature of human life; there is no vision that proclaims the primacy of the common good; there is no transcendent image that makes human virtue a divine reflection. There is No One to reflect and No One to love and serve. I do not want to belong to a religion that cannot kneel. I do not want to live in a world where there is No One to adore. It is a lonely and labored world if I am its only center. My life is too short to discover wisdom on my own, to identify and properly name my own self-importance, to learn how to love if I have to start at zero. — Richard Rohr

Permit me to bypass the entire nature vs. nurture "is gender really built-in?" debate with one simple observation: Men and women are made in the image of God as men or as women. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27). Now, we know God doesn't have a body, so the uniqueness can't be physical. Gender simply must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places within us. God doesn't make generic people; he makes something very distinct - a man or a woman. In other words, there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart, which in their own ways reflect or portray to the world God's heart. — John Eldredge

It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature. — Albert Einstein

Now there are laws in many parts of the world which reflect the best of human nature. These laws treat people touched by HIV with compassion and acceptance. These laws respect universal human rights and they are grounded in evidence. — Shereen El Feki

Converted sinners ought frequently to reflect upon the sinfulness and misery of the state they were in by nature. — Matthew Henry

Unhappiness is a warped and distorted perception of reality. When a man says he is unhappy with his life and gives a written list of why he is dissatisfied, he has given a frank account of the state of his mind. If his mind is neglected and starved from stillness of thought, the nature of his thinking will reflect turbulence, anxiety and a lack of fulfilment.
However, when he is able to transcend thought, by being the observer (the witness) of his thinking and can take control of his mind, tranquility begins to flow through him. He is no longer a slave to his mental concepts, distinctions and limiting beliefs. — Christopher Dines

We're constantly changing and any practice meant to serve our authenticity should reflect our fluid nature. — Gabrielle Roth

The recognition that human beings are specifically and deliberately responsible for whatever aberrances farm animals may embody, that their discordances reflect our, not their, primary disruption of natural rhythms, and that we owe them more rather than less for having stripped them of their birthright and earthrights has not entered into the environmentalist discussions that I've encountered to date. — Karen Davis

The problem is not that greed is "bad" in early development it is necessary for survival - but that greed has psychological consequences. Specifically, the intention to possess not only intensifies the object self, but it engenders fear of the loss of what is possessed.....It is hard to find a neurotic symptom or a human vice that cannot be traced to the desire to possess or the fear of loss....We can understand that neurotic symptoms might disappear as a by-product of a process that diminishes the dominance of the object self.
Ultimately, renunciation, selflessness, and virtuous behaviour, in general, are necessary because they reflect the nature of reality. — Arthur Deikman

Nature's patterns sometimes reflect two intertwined features: fundamental physical laws and environmental influences. It's nature's version of nature versus nurture. — Brian Greene

It is sufficiently humiliating to our nature to reflect that our knowledge is but as she rivulet, our ignorance as the sea. On points of the highest interest, the moment we quit the light of revelation we shall find that Platonism itself is intimately connected with Pyrrhonism, and the deepest inquiry with the darkest doubt. — Charles Caleb Colton

We try to show that the well-ordered society of justice as fairness is indeed possible according to our nature and those requirements. This endeavor belongs to political philosophy as reconciliation; for seeing that the conditions of a social world at least allow for that possibility affects our view of the world itself and our attitude toward it. No longer need it seem hopelessly hostile, a world in which the will to dominate and oppressive cruelties, abetted by prejudice and folly, must inevitably prevail. None of these may ease our loss, situated as we may be in a corrupt society. But we may reflect that the world is not in itself inhospitable to political justice and its good. Our social world might have been different and there is hope for those at another time and place — John Rawls

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. — Richard Le Gallienne

Since love is the most delicate and total act of a soul, it will reflect the state and nature of the soul. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

I often reflect on what an extraordinary time (pun intended) it is to be alive here in the beginning of the twenty-first century. It took life billions of years to get to this point. It took humans thousands of years to piece together a meaningful understanding of our cosmos, our planet, and ourselves. Think how fortunate we are to know this much. But think also of all that's yet to be discovered. Here's hoping the deep answers to the deep questions - from the nature of consciousness to the origin of life - will be found in not too much more time. — Bill Nye

In marriage, we're called to reflect God's love for us through our self-giving love for our spouse. God's love for us isn't dependent on our day-to-day feelings toward him, on how hard we work to please him, or even on how faithful we are to him. It's grounded in his nature and his covenant. — Matthew Vines

Unfortunately, we-especially in the United States-have become increasingly mechanized, so that today we feel very strongly that if we can take anything out of human hands and especially out of the human heart and put it through a machine, we have made progress. Indeed, we flatter ourselves that we can make machines that think like human beings, while not always pausing to reflect that in the process we have also succeeded in making millions of human beings who can feel and think like machines. It is a sorry reflection. — Ashley Montagu

When we reflect upon the cruelties daily practised upon such of the animal creation as are given us for food, or which we ensnarefor our diversion, we shall be obliged to own that there is more of the savage in human nature than we are aware of. — Samuel Richardson

But beyond the mind, beyond our thoughts, there is something we call the 'nature of the mind', the mind's true condition, which is beyond all limits. If it is beyond the mind, though, how can we approach an understanding of it?
Let's take the example of a mirror. When we look into a mirror we see in it the reflected images of any objects that are in front of it; we don't see the nature of the mirror. But what do we mean by this 'nature of the mirror'? We mean its capacity to reflect, definable as its clarity, its purity, and its limpidity, which are indispensable conditions for the manifestation of reflections. This 'nature of the mirror' is not something visible, and the only way we can conceive of it is through the images reflected in the mirror. In the same way, we only know and have concrete experience of that which is relative to our condition of body, voice, and mind. But this itself is the way to understand their true nature. — Namkhai Norbu

As surely as the sunset in my latest November
shall translate me to the ethereal world,
and remind me of the ruddy morning of youth;
as surely as the last strain of music which falls on my decaying ear
shall make age to be forgotten,
or, in short, the manifold influences of nature
survive during the term of our natural life,
so surely my Friend shall forever be my Friend,
and reflect a ray of God to me,
and time shall foster and adorn and consecrate our Friendship,
no less than the ruins of temples. — Henry David Thoreau

Many economists are great believers in the idea that everything in nature is competitive and that we should set up a society which is competitive to reflect that. Anyone who cannot keep up, well, too bad. — Frans De Waal

The intent of our spiritual practice isn't to escape life but to embrace it. The content of our spiritual experiences isn't disconnected from our everyday life; rather, it's vitally important to it.
When we choose to integrate the wisdom we encounter through our spiritual practices, our lives are healed in a radical way. When individuals and communities of people deepen their direct experience of the spiritual nature of this universe, the world is transformed to reflect the qualities of those experiences: peace, connection, love, and cooperation. We begin to see that The Sacred is not a separate being; it is our own nature. We experience the "oneness" of all things. — Jonathan H. Ellerby

But here is the important thing: No matter how untrue we may have been outwardly, there was always truthfulness inside us. We didn't create it. This truthfulness has been there all the time. It was given from the very beginning. It is absolute and unconditional, attributes that we believe to be divine. The absolute truthfulness inside comes from our diving nature: One, Tao, Nothing, Hananim, Zero. Can anything be more true than Nothing? Nothing and Zero, because of their pure, undivided , untarnished nature, can reflect adn weigh everything exactly the way it is, absolutely truthfully. Nothing, Zero, the ultimate reality, is the foundation of the absolute truthfulness, the perfect scale inside us. It is inside us because that is what we are made of: One, Nothing, Energy-Consciousness, LifeParticles. — Ilchi Lee

Our big social institutions do not reflect human nature; they distort it. — Edward Abbey

All things reflect the divine energy of nature - every flower, every rock, every sound, every sight. Once we realize that truth, we cannot help but smile. — Philip Toshio Sudo

I began to reflect on Nature's eagerness to sow life everywhere, to fill the planet with it, to crowd with it the earth, the air, and the seas. Into every corner, into all forgotten things and nooks, Nature struggles to pour life, pouring life into the dead, life into life itself. That immense, overwhelming, relentless, burning ardency of Nature for the stir of life! And all these her creatures, even as these thwarted lives, what travail, what hunger and cold, what bruising and slow-killing struggle will they not endure to accomplish earth's purpose? and what conscious resolution of men can equal their impersonal, their congregate will to yield self life to the will of life universal? — Henry Beston

I know of nothing that has led me to reflect more on Plato's concealment and sphinx nature than that happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was discovered no 'Bible', nothing Egyptian, Pythagorean, Platonic - but Aristophanes. How could even a Plato have endured life - a Greek life which he had denied - without an Aristophanes! - — Friedrich Nietzsche

Since language is used for communicating thought, our view of language must also reflect our new understanding of the nature of thought. Language is at once a surface phenomenon and a source of power. It is a means of expressing, communicating, accessing, and even shaping thought. Words are defined relative to frames and conceptual metaphors. — George Lakoff

To reflect on everything in daily life is to nurture your buddha nature. — Shinjo Ito

Creatures whose mainspring is curiosity enjoy the accumulating of facts far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts. — Clarence Day Jr.

Moreover, since it is in the nature of tastes to differ, how can a standard erected by one person's taste be used to cast judgement on another's? How, for example, can we pretend that one type of music is superior or inferior to another when comparative judgements merely reflect the taste of the one who makes them? — Roger Scruton

I think most writers ... write about episodes meaningful to them in terms of their own imaginations. Now that would include a great deal of what they experience, but I'm not sure there's an autobiographical intention. ... I believe I'm telling the truth when I say that, when I wrote Catch-22, I was not particularly interested in war; I was mainly interested in writing a novel, and that was a subject for it. That's been true of all my books. Now what goes into these books does reflect a great deal of my more morbid nature - the fear of dying, a great deal of social awareness and social protest, which is part of my personality. None of that is the objective of writing. Take five writers who have experienced the same thing, and they will be completely different as people, and they'd be completely different in what they do write, what they're able to write. — Joseph Heller

What was more needed by this old man who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime, and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in his most beautiful as well as in his most sublime works? Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect upon. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate upon: a few flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the sky. — Victor Hugo

For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced. — Francis Bacon

Nature sometimes joins her effects and her appearances to our acts with a sort of serious and intelligent appropriateness; as if she would compel us to reflect. — Victor Hugo

All of life is relationship. We relate to people, things, and ideas, and our actions reflect the tone and substance of each relationship. How we relate to money, to the ideal of love, to nature, to our concept of death, and to our spouse reveals, in the moment, the truth of ourselves. — John McAfee

The nature of war itself is changing to reflect this new reality. History has shown that two democracies almost never wage war against each other. Almost all wars of the past have been waged between nondemocracies, or between a democracy and a nondemocracy. In general, war fever can be easily whipped up by demagogues who demonize the enemy. But in a democracy, with a vibrant press, oppositional parties, and a comfortable middle class that has everything to lose in a war, war fever is much more difficult to cultivate. — Anonymous

Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way. — George W. Bush

If for instance the sentiment possessing for the moment the empire of our mind is sorrow, will not the genius sharpen the sorrow and the sorrow purify the genius? Together, will they not be like a cut diamond for which language is only the wax on which they stamp their imprint? I believe that genius, thus awakened, has no need to seek out details, that it scarcely pauses to reflect, that it never thinks of unity: I believe that the details come naturally without search by the poet, that inspiration takes the place of reflection and as for unity, I think there is no unity so perfect as that which results from a heart filled with a single idea ... The nature of genius is related to that of instinct; it's operation is both simple and marvelous. — Charlotte Bronte

Each finite creature can reflect only a fraction of the divine nature; thus, in the diversity of His creatures, God's infinity, unity and oneness appear to be broken into an effulfgence of manifold rays. — Edith Stein

Reflect frequently upon the instability of things, and how very fast the scenes of nature are shifted. Matter is in perpetual flux. Change is always and everywhere at work; it strikes through causes and effects, and leaves nothing fixed and permanent. — Marcus Aurelius

threats and promises often succeed in creating stable human hierarchies and mass-cooperation networks, as long as people believe that they reflect the inevitable laws of nature or the divine commands of God, rather than just human whims. — Yuval Noah Harari

We might do well to stay home a few days and walk over the fields, or to stand in the shelter of the barn door and reflect upon the relentless and yet benevolent forces of Mother Nature. The laws of nature are relentless. They can never be disobeyed without exacting a penalty. Yet they are benevolent, for when they are understood and obeyed, nature yields up the abundance that blesses those who understand and obey. — Wheeler McMillen

Everybody needs time to reflect and contemplate, and the most inspirational and peaceful place to do so is in nature. — Akiane Kramarik

The most consistent characteristic of awakened teachers and people I have met is a childlike nature. They laugh, cry, twinkle, and joke, all with a spontaneity born of freedom. Their faces are fluid and reflect a timeless sweetness, even into old age. — Catherine Ingram

To imitate nature involves the verb to do. To copy is merely to reflect something already there, inertly: Shakespeare's mirror is all that is needed for it. But by imitation we enlarge nature itself, we become nature or we discover in ourselves nature's active part. — William Carlos Williams

In the detective story, as in its mirror image, the Quest for the Grail, maps (the ritual of space) and timetables (the ritual of time) are desirable. Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder. The country is preferable to the town, a well-to-do neighborhood (but not too well-to-do-or there will be a suspicion of ill-gotten gains) better than a slum. The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing room carpet."

(The guilty vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict, Harper's Magazine, May 1948) — W. H. Auden

The problems that stand in the way are not of economical or technological nature. The deepest sources of the global crisis lie inside the human personality and reflect the level of consciousness evolution of our species. — Stanislav Grof

Heaven is filled with absolute, perfect, confidence in God. This world is filled with absolute mistrust. And you and I will always reflect the nature of the world we are most aware of. What you live conscious of is what you will reproduce in the world around you. I try to live in such a way that nothing ever gets bigger in my awareness than my conscious awareness of the presence of God upon me. I don't care what the problem is; if it's an international crisis or a personal issue, the moment that problem gets bigger than my awareness of the presence of God on me, then I will live in reaction to a problem. — Bill Johnson

Just as the calm unruffled lake, mirrors the beauty of a scene, I would reflect to those who read, the joys of love and life serene". — P. J. Peters

And here, right at the start, one encounters a new difficulty. For the task of reestablishing the notion of God's authority is obstructed not only by the depreciation of authority itself, but also by a false, pre-established picture of God- found even within the church.
Certainly, the church has preserved the concept of a loving God, a merciful God, a compassionate God. But have Christians generally themselves any vivid sense of God's power and dominion? Do we, when we worship God, or when we reflect on His nature, catch a clear echo of His resounding and indomitable majesty? ... It cannot be denied that this is the God we are supposed to worship- not just a companionable God who is to be sidled up to and nestled against, but and awesome God before whom the worshipper prostrates himself, a wrathful God whose raised right arm can shake the universe. — Harry Blamires

But art not only exploits the variety of appearances, it also affirms the validity of individual outlook and thereby admits a further dimension of variety. Since the shapes of art do not primarily bear witness to the objective nature of the things for which they stand, they can reflect individual interpretation and invention. — Rudolf Arnheim

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. — Thomas Jefferson

Youth is to venture; age is to love nature and reflect. — Debasish Mridha

I feel free. Like some whimsical child in an enchanted forest, I feel free.
Amazed at the power of the colors that surround me, I feel free. The cool water that quenches my thirst also warms my skin as I bathe, my pores opening to the pleasure of the clear pools embracing my soul. The colors reflect on the mirrored glass that supports me. I can see beauty all around. Here I float, effortlessly, and here I will remain.
I feel free. I make my commitments and my agreements in complete liberation. I love freely, openly, within the bounds of my own moral compass. I give, and I take, learning to do each with equal excitement, with equal vigor.
The odd thing about receiving is how hard it can be. Yet, we owe it to those we love, who love us back, to do just that. Then, we can explore the vibrant colors of our enchanted forests together, and bathe one another in the refreshing springs of nature's own charity.
I love, and therefore am safe in all things. — Tom Grasso

Nature at times adds her own commentary to our actions with a kind of somber and considered eloquence, as though she were bidding us reflect. — Victor Hugo

Furthermore, consider that as one of its most important purposes, stewardship of creation should sustain nature's worshiping capacity. The more I reflect on Scriptures and the more I sense how God thrills to the adoration He receives from all that He has created, the more I realize He has given us the awesome responsibility of caring for His creation so that it can go on praising Him until the end of time. — Tony Campolo

You know, writer can write about the Foreign Legion without ever having been in the Foreign Legion, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what he's written doesn't necessarily reflect the nature of him as an individual - or her. Using the male gender because it's me speaking. I don't mean to put down the female. — Rod Serling

The fact that the apes exist and that we can study them is extremely important and makes us reflect on ourselves and our human nature. In that sense alone, you need to protect the apes. — Frans De Waal

The Founder-Director purposely designed the building in a U-shape, in the interior of which is a courtyard with a central fountain, to reflect the introspective nature of a true Muslim, a universal and perfect man. These interior parts of the building are hidden from the outside in contrast to secularized buildings which face the road and are exposed to the busy traffic of secular life and are therefore without real privacy and introspective spirit. — Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud

Techniques employ four qualities that reflect the nature of our world. Depending on the circumstance, you should be: hard as a diamond, flexible as a willow, smooth-flowing like water, or as empty as space. — Morihei Ueshiba

Yet Jesus Christ says he is standing knocking at the door of our lives, waiting. Notice that he is standing at the door, not pushing it; speaking to us, not shouting. This is all the more remarkable when we reflect that the house is his in any case. He is the architect; he designed it. He is the builder; he made it. He is the landlord; he bought it with his own blood. So it is his by right of plan, construction, and purchase. We are only tenants in a house that does not belong to us. He could put his shoulder to the door; he prefers to put his hand on the knocker. He could command us to open to him; instead, he merely invites us to do so. He will not force an entry to anybody's life. He says (verse 18) 'I counsel you.' He could issue orders; he is content to give advice. This is the nature of his humility and the extent of the freedom he has given us. — John R.W. Stott

To make a love story, you need a couple of young people, but to reflect on the nature of love, you're better off with old ones. That is a fact of life and literature - and of the novel ever since it fell in love with love in the 18th century. — James Buchan

Whether you are aware of them or not, whether you recognize them as spiritual or not, you probably have had the experiences of silence, or transcendence, or the Divine-a few seconds, a few minutes that seem out of time; a moment when the ordinary looks beautiful, glowing; a deep sense of being at peace, feeling happy for no reason. When these experiences come ... believe in them. They reflect your true nature. — Ravi Shankar

I know from my own experience that there is much more to 'intelligence' than an IQ number. In fact, I hesitate to believe that any system could really reflect the complexity and uniqueness of one person's mind, or meaningfully describe the nature of his or her potential. — Daniel Tammet

Every mind should reflect to touch the green of life through trees. — Munia Khan

When sunlight, which contains red, yellow, green, and blue light, shines on a mud puddle with oil on it, the areas that strongly reflect each of those colors overlap and produce all kinds of combinations which our eyes see as different colors ... This phenomenon of colors produced by the partial reflection of white light by two surfaces is called iridescence, and can be found in many places ... the more you see how strangely Nature behaves, the harder it is to make a model that explains how even the simplest phenomena actually work. — Richard Feynman

There can be no intellectual, spiritual, or emotional life without the substratum of memory. Without cognition and awareness of beauty and appreciation of our limited time on planet Earth, humankind's sojourn would be a colorless collage composed of the base acts of a biological mass endeavoring merely to survive. Without the ability to recall striking memories, our emotional life would be stillborn. Absent authentic memories, our life struggles would seem purposeless: human beings would exhibit no capacity to reflect awe when witnessing the bounty of nature's plenitude or be able to take in and express intense reverence for all that is sacred. Without memory, there would not be a dais to support faith or any ability to imagine a God; the concepts of good and evil would be nonexistent; and the past and the future would become less relevant than the choice between salt or pepper, and paper or plastic. — Kilroy J. Oldster