Life Celebration Quotes
Crafted with the reader in mind, this collection is clearly divided by themes:
Alan Watts
The only zen you’ll find on mountain tops is the zen you bring up there with you.
Albert Einstein
One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Brooke Medicine Eagle
Ancient teachings call us to turn primary attention to the Sacred Web of Life, of which we are part and with which we are so obviously entangled. This quality of attention - paying attention to the whole - is called among my people ‘holiness’.
Chief Tecumseh
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light,
for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
Carl Jung
Whenever we touch nature we get clean. People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a bath in the sea. Entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside and this is the same thing, things are put right again.
… when all is said and done, our own existence is an experiment of nature, an attempt at a new synthesis.
Confucius
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Epicurus
The man who follows nature and not vain opinions is independent in all things. For in reference to what is enough for nature every possession is riches, but in reference to unlimited desires even the greatest wealth is not riches but poverty.
Nothing satisfies the man who is not satisfied with a little.
Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all riches.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
Henry David Thoreau
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.
Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry, determined to make a day of it. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Hermann Hesse
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.
Lao Tzu
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
You cannot receive what you don’t give. Outflow determines inflow.
Maya Angelou
Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.
Ohiyesa (Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman)
He [the American Indian] believes profoundly in silence - the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood, is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the trees, not a ripple upon the surface of the shinning pool - his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life.
Whenever, in the course of the daily hunt the hunter comes upon a scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime - a black thundercloud with the rainbow’s glowing arch above the mountain; a white waterfall in the heart of a tree gorge; a vast prairie tinged with the blood-red of a sunset - he pauses for an instant in the attitude of worship. He sees no need for setting apart one day in seven as a holiday, since to him all days are God’s.
Nikola Tesla
If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
Wayne William Snellgrove
Once you learn to walk with the Spirit you will have no interest in judging those who don’t.
Sir Isaac Newton
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.
Vincent van Gogh
If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
Why not keep this resource at your fingertips?
Other Voices
For these sections without caricature the quote comes first, the cited person after. In case you are using text-to-speech be aware.
Enjoy the peace of Nature and declutter your inner world.
Amit Ray
There are things about ourselves that we need to get rid of; there are things we need to change. But at the same time, we do not need to be too desperate, too ruthless, too combative. Along the way to usefulness and happiness, many of those things will change themselves, and the others can be worked on as we go…
The first thing we need to do is recognize our own Inner Nature, and not lose sight of it.
Benjamin Hoff
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
Chuang Tzu
After all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brilliant scholars, or have been written in fine books and embellished in fine language with finer covers, man - all man - is still confronted with The great Mystery.
Chief Luther Standing Bear
Unless we are willing to encourage our children to reconnect with and appreciate the natural world, we can't expect them to help protect and care for it.
David Suzuki
Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.
Earl Nightingale
It’s the Hopi belief, that, if you’re not spiritually connected to the Earth, and understand the spiritual reality of how to live on Earth, it’s likely you will not make it. You should treat all things as Spirit – realize that we are ONE Family.
Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature, unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.
Hubert Reeves
Nature cares nothing for logic, our human logic: she has her own, which we do not recognize and do not acknowledge until we are crushed under its wheel.”
Ivan Turgenev
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods. There is a rapture on the lonely shore. There is society where none intrudes. By the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not man the less, but Nature more.
Lord Byron
When life feels too big to handle, go outside. Everything looks smaller when you’re standing under the sky.
L.R. Knost
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing. If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
Mary Oliver
When King Pyrrus prepared for his expedition into Italy, his wise counsellor Cyneas, to make him sensible to the vanity of his ambition: “Well, sir,” said he, “To what end do you make all this mighty preparation?” “To make myself master of Italy,” replied the King. “And what after that is done?” Said Cyneas. “I will pass over into Gaul and Spain,” said the other. “And what then?” “I will go to subdue Africa; and lastly, when I have brought the whole world to my subjection, I will sit down and rest content at my own ease.” “For God’s sake, sir,” replied Cyneas, “Tell me what hinders that you may not, if you please, be now in the condition you speak of? Why do you not now at this instant, settle yourself in the state you seem to aim at, and spare al the labour and hazard you interpose?”
Michel de Montaigne
The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.
Rabindranath Tagore
To be wild is not to be crazy or psychotic. True wildness is a love of nature, a delight in silence, a voice free to say spontaneous things, and an exuberant curiosity in the face of the unknown.
Robert Bly
The poor long for riches and the rich for heaven, but the wise long for a state of tranquility.
Swami Rama
Nature is alive and talking to us. This is not a metaphor.
Terence McKenna
Earth is not a platform for human life. It’s a living being. We’re not on it but a part of it. Its health is our health.
Thomas Moore
Before I was six years old, my grandparents and my mother had taught me that all the green things that grow were taken from the Earth, there could be no life. If all the four-legged creatures were taken from the Earth, there could be no life. If all the winged creatures were taken from the Earth, there could be no life. If all our relatives who crawl and swim and live within the Earth were taken away, there could be no life. But if all the human beings were taken away, life on Earth would flourish. That is how insignificant we are.
Russell Means
The most important thing to remember about ceremony is that it is a way for humans to give back to the Creation some of the energy that they are always receiving. The Earth Mother constantly gives us two-leggeds a surface on which to place our two feet; Father Sun warms us, and Grandmother Moon brings dreams. The element of Earth gives us a place to grow food and the ability to make homes and tools. The water keeps us alive. The fire warms our homes and cooks our food. The air gives us the sacred breath of life… Through ceremony we learn how to give back.
Sun Bear
My Grandfather Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha) offered simple teachings. For example, each person should ask himself or herself four important questions that can serve as guides; Am I happy in what I am doing? Is what I am doing going to add to the confusion in the world? What am I doing to bring about peace and contentment? How will I be remembered when I am gone?
Yehwenode (Twylah Kitsch)
We don’t have to heal the Earth; she can heal herself. All we have to do is stop making her sick.
Wallace Black Elk
The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they'll ease
Your will they'll mend
And charge you not a shilling.
Wayne Fields
