Washington Irving Quotes

To be a naturalist is better than to be a king.

Study nature, not books.

Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.

As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can".

If the omniscient author of nature knew that the study of his works tends to make men disbelieve his Being or Attributes, he would not have given them so many invitations to study and contemplate Nature.

I study nature, and I realize that no matter how much you learn, you can't top nature.

I used to love wildlife as a kid and being outside in the garden and the woods and the field and that stuff.

Agriculture changes the landscape more than anything else we do. It alters the composition of species. We don't realize it when we sit down to eat, but that is our most profound engagement with the rest of nature.

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature's forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle.

Forests are precious resources of the country and a wealth to be handed down to posterity.

The study of Nature brings into a harmonious whole the questions of the Infinite, the Historic, and the Microscopic as part of the Great Creator's work.

The more I see of deer, the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.

I liked natural history. I liked the outdoors. And I found the sea quite interesting.

I like being out there. I've done Snowdon, walked a bit of the Cleveland Way, did some of the Coast to Coast.

Woods are rich with biodiversity and, above all, places of trees and light that spangles a thousand greens through the leaves.

I cannot pick one single forest to be a favourite, but I am in love with the Indian jungles - be it Madhumalai and Kabini in South India or Tadoba and Pench National Park in Maharashtra. The wildlife in Satpura and Corbett National Park can't be missed, either.

If I'm honest, the thing I am proudest of is my varieties of wild flowers in the hay meadow.

I love generally being out in nature. It is just so amazing.

The planet's forests are essential for life.

I have my mountain man moments like hiking in the woods.

The Louvre is a good book to consult, but it must only be an intermediary. The real and immense study that must be taken up is the manifold picture of nature.

In a cabinet of natural history, we become sensible of a certain occult recognition and sympathy in regard to the most unwieldy and eccentric forms of beast, fish, and insect.

What greater delight and wonder can there be than to leave the straight lines of personality and deviate into these footpaths that lead beneath brambles and thick tree trunks into the heart of the forest where live those wild beasts, our fellow men? That is true: to escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter the greatest of adventures.

A natural environment is far more complex than any playing field.

Nature would not appear so rich, the profusion so rich, if we knew a use for everything.