Tom Robbins Quotes

Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

Nothing leads to good that is not natural.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.

O trees of life, O when are you wintering?We are not unified. We have no instinctslike those of migratory birds. Useless, and late,we force ourselves, suddenly, onto the wind,and fall down to an indifferent lake.We realise flowering and fading together.And somewhere lions still roam. Never knowing,as long as they have their splendour, of any weakness.

There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it.

War is often described as a law of nature-this is not true: Among the lower animals, war is unknown.

Nothing is more consonant with Nature than that she puts into operation in the smallest detail that which she intends as a whole.

The squirrel hoards nuts and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do, and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace.

The morning woods were utterly new. A strong yellow light pooled beneath the trees; my shadow appeared and vanished on the path, since a third of the trees I walked under were still bare, a third spread a luminous haze wherever they grew, and another third blocked the sun with new, whole leaves. The snakes were out - I saw a bright, smashed one on the path - and the butterflies were vaulting and furling about; the phlox was at its peak, and even the evergreens looked greener, newly created and washed.

I eat not because I want to, not because I have to overcome anything, not to prove myself to anyone, but because it's there. I eat because that's what people do. And somehow when the food is put in front of you by an institution, when there's a large gray force behind it and you don't have to thank anyone for it, you have the animal instinct to make it disappear.

Love is the impulse which directs the world, And all things know it and obey its power. Man, in the maelstrom of his passions whirled; The bee that takes the pollen to the flower; The earth, uplifting her bare, pulsing breast To fervent kisses of the amorous sun;-- Each but obeys creative Love's behest, Which everywhere instinctively is done.

We cannot fail in following nature.

Nature is orderly. That which appears to be chaotic in nature is only a more complex kind of order.

These are the days when birds come back, a very few, a Bird or two, to take a backward look.

Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ, God and Man. Peace and harmony, too, will result; for with the spread and the universal extension of the kingdom of Christ, men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them together, and thus many conflicts will either be prevented entirely or at least their bitterness be diminished.

Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny. It hath been Th' untimely emptying of the happy throne And fall of many kings.

Wolves are disciplined not only when they hunt but also when they travel, when they play, and when they eat. Nature doesn't view discipline as a negative thing. Discipline is DNA. Discipline is survival.

Whether with Reason, or with Instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best.

We have to believe that everything has a cause, as the spider spins its web in order to catch flies. But it does this before it knows there are such things as flies.

If you want to nourish a bird, you should let it live any way it chooses. Creatures differ because they have different likes and dislikes. Therefore the sages never require the same ability from all creatures. . . concepts of right should be founded on what is suitable. The true saint leaves wisdom to the ants, takes a cue from the fishes, and leaves willfulness to the sheep.

Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature; not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces.