Sigurd T. Olson Quotes

Mother of Marvels, mysterious and tender Nature, why do we not live more in thee.

Never a day passes but that I do myself the honor to commune with some of nature's varied forms.

I'm a big believer in our connection to nature.

Man's heart away from nature becomes hard.

He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.

Places are part of nature, of the bigger picture. We are interrelated. When we contemplate them in their own right, they can sometimes change our lives; they can become spiritual experiences.

It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth.

I have grown up on a diet of sunrise picnics, learning the names of butterflies, planting trees.

There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" : but beavers and their dams are.

. . . every tree near our house had a name of its own and a special identity. This was the beginning of my love for natural things, for earth and sky, for roads and fields and woods, for trees and grass and flowers; a love which has been second only to my sense of enduring kinship with birds and animals, and all inarticulate creatures.

I think every pet lover has an appreciation for nature - I've never met an animal lover who didn't have some kind of connection to the natural world.

Watch nature, because it is your greatest teacher. It moves and flows and moves on again. There is an incredible beauty out there in the mountains, in the forests, to teach you it's silence, it's beauty, it's humility. Stay aligned to that.

Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.

One does not begin to make a garden until he wants a garden. To want a garden is to be interested in plants, in the winds and rains, in birds and insects, in the warm-smelling earth.

The dance of the flower in the wind, in the sun, in the rain, cannot be understood by the head; the heart has to be open for it.

...he who has seen the intimate beauty of nature cannot tear himself away from it again. He must become either a poet or a naturalist and, if his eyes are keen and his powers of observation sharp enough, he may well become both.

We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are.

This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

Natural things are glorious, and to know them is glorious.

I am pleased enough with the surfaces - in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child's hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of a friend or lover, the silk of a girl's thigh, the sunlight on the rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind - what else is there? What else do we need?

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.

Putting something called Nature on a pedestal and admiring it from afar does for the environment what patriarchy does for the figure of Woman. It is paradoxical act of sadistic admiration.

Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.

The fields and the flowers and the beautiful faces are not ours, as the stars and the hills and the sunlight are not ours, but they give us fresh and happy thoughts.

The more I see of life the more I perceive that only through solitary communion with nature can one gain an idea of its richness and meaning.