Naturalism Quotes

“I’m lying on the ground looking up at the branches of an oak tree. Dappled light is shining through the canopy, the leaves whisper ancient incantations. This tree, in its living stage, rooted in sights and sounds that I’ll never know, has witnessed extinctions and wars, loves and losses. I wish we could translate the language of trees – hear their voices, know their stories. They host such an astonishing amount of life – there are thousands of species harbouring in and on and under this mighty giant. And I believe trees are like us, or they inspire the better parts of human nature. If only we could be connected in the way this oak tree is connected with its ecosystem.”
― Dara McAnulty, Diary of a Young Naturalist

“Anyone who’s been deemed ‘unnatural’ in the face of reigning biological norms, anyone who’s experienced injustices wrought in the name of natural order, will realize that the glorification of ‘nature’ has nothing to offer us–the queer and trans among us, the differently-abled, as well as those who have suffered discrimination due to pregnancy or duties connected to child-rearing. [Xenofeminism] is vehemently anti-naturalist. Essentialist naturalism reeks of theology–the sooner it is exorcised, the better.”
― Laboria Cuboniks, Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”
― Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

“He painted trees as by some special divining instinct of their essential qualities. He understood them. He knew why in an oak forest, for instance, each individual was utterly distinct from its fellows, and why no two beeches in the whole world were alike. People asked him down to paint a favorite lime or silver birch, for he caught the individuality of a tree as some catch the individuality of a horse. How he managed it was something of a puzzle, for he never had painting lessons, his drawing was often wildly inaccurate, and, while his perception of a Tree Personality was true and vivid, his rendering of it might almost approach the ludicrous. Yet the character and personality of that particular tree stood there alive beneath his brush—shining, frowning, dreaming, as the case might be, friendly or hostile, good or evil. It emerged.”
― Algernon Blackwood, Pan’s Garden: a Volume of Nature Stories

“Tennyson, you remember, says, ‘the cedars sigh for Lebanon,’ and that is exquisite poetry, but Blackwood believes the cedars really do sigh for Lebanon.”
― Arthur Machen

“An hour in nature prevents a year at the hospital.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“I believe a human being carries his or her own holiness, which lies within the realm of the earth; there are no otherworldly explanations.”
― Ingmar Bergman, Images: My Life in Film

“Some things change quickly, but they are nested within other things that change less quickly.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“The cause of lightning was once thought to be God's wrath, but turned out to be the unintelligent outcome of mindless natural forces. We once thought an intelligent being must have arranged and maintained the amazingly ordered motions of the solar system, but now we know it's all the inevitable outcome of mindless natural forces. Disease was once thought to be the mischief of supernatural demons, but now we know that tiny, unintelligent organisms are the cause, which reproduce and infect us according to mindless natural forces. In case after case, without exception, the trend has been to find that purely natural causes underlie any phenomena. Not once has the cause of anything turned out to really be God's wrath or intelligent meddling, or demonic mischief, or anything supernatural at all. The collective weight of these observations is enormous: supernaturalism has been tested at least a million times and has always lost; naturalism has been tested at least a million times and has always won. A horse that runs a million races and never loses is about to run yet another race with a horse that has lost every single one of the million races it has run. Which horse should we bet on? The answer is obvious.”
― Richard C. Carrier, Naturalism vs. Theism: The Carrier-Wanchick Debate

“Being mindful doesn't mean being open to the supernatural, being mindful means being open to the natural.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Heaven is a people.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“There's no happy ending without an unpleasant start”
― Benarrioua Aniss, From Psychedelia With Love

“Nature is poetry only a naturalist can fathom,
Science is poetry only a scientist can fathom.
Math is poetry only a mathematician can fathom,
Love is poetry only a lover can fathom.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“I cannot truly imagine a truly great person who hasn't suffered.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“You can find gods signature in the artwork of nature.”
― Natasha Potter

“If you look long enough, you'll find that god hides in nature.”
― Natasha Potter

“There are wide boulevards in Paris lined with trees," he told her, spreading his arms expansively. "The buildings are nearly as big as our dunes."

Her eyes widened. "Why on earth would anyone wish to live in such a crowded place?" she asked. "Why would they wish to live in a house built of unmoving stone? Why would they wish a roof over their heads? How would they know the sky? How would they know freedom?" She shook her head. "It is odd that people choose to live in such a backward fashion. It is no better than the harratin who till the soil, forever chained to there are plots of land.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball

“She understood this new phenomenon of overabundance to be born of the arrival of yet more of her people in the land. There was a new imbalance, a strangeness unsustainable. Henceforth, there would be far too much in some directions and in others a wretched poverty.”
― Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds

“If human mind perseveres long enough, every mystery soon reveals its truth.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Law of Nature is its lack of meaning,
as well as its lack of morality.
We needed an image to bear the blame,
and be the imaginary steward of our destiny.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“You cannot force things to happen naturally, but you can influence yourself to accept changes.”
― Zinny Ekechukwu

“The general argument from the contingent to the absolute, or from the conditioned to the unconditioned, is a powerful and cogent one. No attempt, philosophical or otherwise, to show that it is a confused argument, or logically insufficient, or susceptible of some purely physical answer has ever been impressively successful. Even if one does not accept its conclusions one still has absolutely no rational warrant for believing that materialism has any sort of logical superiority over theism; the classical argument is strong enough to show that naturalism is far and away a weaker, more incomplete, and more willfully doctrinaire position than classical theism is. Naturalism, as I have said repeatedly, is a philosophy of the absurd, of the just-there-ness of what is certainly by its nature a contingent reality; it is, simply enough, an absurd philosophy.”
― David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God : Being, Consciousness, Bliss

“Linked with Gray's final memories, he heard the song of an arctic bird instead of the humans' shouts. Instead of the ashy haze that hung over them, he saw with Gray a vast blue bowl of sky. Instead of lying on the gritted ground, he tumbled with Gray and his brother kits across a snowy tundra spiked with starry blue flowers. He purred with Gray under his silver mother's rough tongue, tasted her warm milk, felt the weight of her chin resting over his newborn skull. And then Peace.

The old fox was still.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Earth Engineer (Sonnet 2336)

Earth has abundant resources to suffice our need,
but no planet has enough to suffice our greed.
Earth is rich, earth is bountiful, like a doting
mother, she provides for all her kids.

There is no economic depression,
only addiction of power and money.
There is no population explosion,
only outbreak of egocentricity.

What's the point of your architecture or engineering
degree, if you can't build a human habitat without
destroying entire ecosystems of other living things!
And you call yourself an engineer, an architect -
a sparrow has more sense than a stupid earthling.

Reach for the stars all you want,
but anchor your soul in the soil.
Human blood deficient of salt from earth,
leads to a history of mental turmoil.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“What's the point of your architecture or engineering degree, if you can't build a human habitat without destroying entire ecosystems of other living things!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Reach for the stars all you want,
but anchor your soul in the soil.
Human blood deficient of salt from earth,
leads to a history of mental turmoil.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“Reach for the stars all you want, but anchor your soul in the soil.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“In pursuit of a meaning higher than life, we get disconnected from simple miracles of nature.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“The winds of today carry our tomorrow.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Famous flowers of Kashmir, often called “Paradise on Earth” for its breathtaking floral diversity. These flowers grow naturally in the Himalayas and are also cultivated in gardens and farms.”
― Flowers of Kashmir