Henry Beston

“Hold your hands out to the wind, and remember that you are brother to the birds.”

“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.”

“The great rhythm of the sea is a part of the rhythm of our lives.”

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals.”

“Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night.”

“The seas are the heart's blood of the earth.”

“They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

“The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot.”

“Creation is here and now. So is divinity. It is not something that is going to happen by and by. It is all here, in the river, in the forest, in the mountains, in the sea.”

“Peace with the earth is the first peace.”

“Know the clock of the seasons and the migrations of the birds.”

“For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”

“Whatever attitude to human existence you fashion for yourself, know that it is valid only if it be the shadow of an attitude to Nature.”

“The ancient values of dignity, beauty, and poetry which sustain it are of Nature's inspiration; they are born of the mystery and beauty of the world.”

“Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places.”

“Nature is a part of our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery man ceases to be man.”