Nathaniel Parker Willis Quotes

I grew up in Hawaii so I was outside a lot playing in the water.

Again and again, to be sure, on the way to America, and under many other circumstances, man has passed through the most adverse climates and has survived, but he has flourished and waxed strong only in certain zones.

Women are most fascinating between the ages of 35 and 40 after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves. Since few women ever pass 40, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely.

Indians are numerous in the tropical regions; not so elsewhere.

It looks as though yields of over 10 times what we can currently grow per acre are feasible if you control the CO2 concentration, the humidity, the temperature, all the various factors that plants depend on to grow rapidly.

The physician must give heed to the region in which the patient lives, that is to say, to its type and peculiarities.

The broadest pattern of history - namely, the differences between human societies on different continents - seems to me to be attributable to differences among continental environments, and not to biological differences among peoples themselves.

I always say that polo, for you to pursue a career, mainly any sport, you have to be born in the right place. If you're born in Hawaii, you surf. If you're born in Austria, you probably will ski. If you're born in Argentina, you most likely ride horses and have a chance to play polo.

I was signed at 18 and had to grow up quickly.

I've lived the life of a 35-year-old since I was 18.

If your parents gave you fire to play with when you were two, you'd be standing in fire by the time you were an adult.

Everyone thrives most in his or her own unique environment.

I remember dawn coming up over the Strait of Malacca; ragamuffin kids on the dock in Sumatra laughing as they pelted us with bananas; collecting dead flying fish off the deck and bringing them to our sweet, fat, toothless Danish cook to fry up for breakfast.

The striking differences between the long-term histories of peoples of the different continents have been due not to innate differences in the people themselves but to differences in their environments.

Geography determines social development …. But geography may be losing much of its meaning.

Years ago, I went to Brazil and fell in love with it. I really like the music, samba, bossa nova, the language and the people.

The best people, like the best wines, come from the hills.

The troubles of the 20th century are not unlike those of adolescence -- rapid growth beyond the ability of organizations to manage, uncontrollable emotion, and a desperate search for identity. Out of adolescence, however, comes maturity in which physical growth with all its attendant difficulties comes to an end, but in which growth continues in knowledge, in spirit, in community, and in love; it is to this that we look forward as a human race. This goal, once seen with our eyes, will draw our faltering feet toward it.

A person's readiness to date is largely a matter of maturity and environment.

I'd like to think, eight years ago, I was pretty humble and modest. But I think, with each year, you get more modest, more humble, more appreciative. The off the field tragedies put things in better perspective, but life happens to everybody, and I think we all just try to do the best we can.

If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come.

The difference between right and wrong is often not more than five metres.

If anything, there's more at stake when you're older, and more responsibility and more legitimate things to worry about.

Every three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008.

The stretch of years leaves none unmarked: the blissful sense of youthful invincibility peels away and responsibility brings its weight to bear.