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The collection / 606 fragments

Nature.

Explore passages mentioning nature, flower, flowers. Topic suggestions use transparent word matching, not scholarly classification. Editorial meanings and lexical matches are discovery aids, not independent authentication of a quotation.

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01c. 1486 AD
The act of cutting out the nostrils of a horse is a piece of ludicrous folly. And the foolish indulge in this practice as though they considered nature had failed to supply necessary wants, and man had therefore to supplement her work. Nature made two apertures in the nose, which each in itself is half as large as the lung pipe whence breath proceeds, and if these apertures did not exist the mouth would abundantly suffice for breathing purposes. And if you said to me, Why has nature thus provided animals with nostrils if respiration through the mouth is sufficient?—I would answer that nostrils are made to be used when the mouth is employed in masticating its food.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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03c. 1486 AD
Nature has so placed the leaves of the latest shoots of many trees that the sixth leaf is always above the first, and thus in continued succession unless the rule is obstructed. And this she has done for two useful purposes in the plant: firstly, since the branches and the fruit of the following year spring from the bud or eye which is above and in contact with the juncture of the leaves, the water which feeds the shoot may be able to run down and nourish the bud, through the drop being caught in the hollow whence the leaf springs. And the second advantage is that as these buds shoot in the following year, one will not be covered by the other, since the five shoots spring on five different sides.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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05c. 1486 AD
There is no part of astronomy which does not depend on the visual lines and on perspective, the daughter of painting; because the painter is he who by the necessity of his art has begotten perspective, and it is impossible to do without lines which include all the various figures of the bodies begotten by nature and without which the art of geometry is blind. And while the geometrist reduces every surface surrounded by lines to a square, and each body to the figure of the cube, and mathematics do the same with their cube roots and square roots, these two sciences deal only with the continuous and discontinuous quantity, but they do not deal with the quality which constitutes the beauty of the works of nature and the ornament of the world.
Leonardo da Vinci / quote
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08c. 1872 AD
Goodness and Malignity.—At first men imposed their own personalities on Nature: everywhere they saw themselves and their like, i.e. their own evil and capricious temperaments, hidden, as it were, behind clouds, thunder-storms, wild beasts, trees, and plants: it was then that they declared Nature was evil. Afterwards there came a time, that of Rousseau, when they sought to distinguish themselves from Nature: they were so tired of each other that they wished to have separate little hiding-places where man and his misery could not penetrate: then they invented “nature is good.”
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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09c. 1872 AD
In what Respect we are most Subtle.—By the fact that, for thousands of years, things (nature, tools, property of all kinds) were thought to be alive and to possess souls, and able to hinder and interfere with the designs of man, the feeling of impotence among men has become greater and more frequent than it need have been: for one had to secure one's things like men and beasts, by means of force, compulsion, flattery, treaties, sacrifices—and it is here that we may find the origin of the greater number of superstitious customs, i.e. of an important, perhaps paramount, and nevertheless wasted and useless division of mankind's activity!—But since the feeling of impotence and fear was so strong, and for such a length of time in a state of constant stimulation, the feeling of power in man has been developed in so subtle a manner that, in this respect, he can compare favourably with the most delicately-adjusted balance. This feeling has become his strongest propensity: and the means he discovered for creating it form almost the entire history of culture.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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10c. 1872 AD
Actors of Virtue and Sin.—Among the ancients who became celebrated for their virtue there were many, it would seem, who acted to themselves, especially the Greeks, who, being actors by nature, must have acted quite unconsciously, seeing no reason why they should not do so. In addition, every one was striving to outdo some one else's virtue with his own, so why should they not have made use of every artifice to show off their virtues, especially among themselves, if only for the sake of practice! Of what use was a virtue which one could not display, and which did not know how to display itself!—Christianity put an end to the career of these actors of virtue; instead it devised the disgusting ostentation and parading of sins: it brought into the world a state of mendacious sinfulness (even at the present day this is considered as bon ton among orthodox Christians).
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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11c. 1872 AD
Pride in Spirit.—The pride of man, which strives to oppose the theory of our own descent from animals and establishes a wide gulf between nature and man himself—this pride is founded upon a prejudice as to what the mind is; and this prejudice is relatively recent. In the long prehistorical period of humanity it was supposed that the mind was everywhere, and men did not look upon it as a particular characteristic of their own. Since, on the contrary, everything spiritual (including all impulses, maliciousness, and inclinations) was regarded as common property, and consequently accessible to everybody, primitive mankind was not ashamed of being descended from animals or trees (the noble races thought themselves honoured by such legends), and saw in the spiritual that which unites us with nature, and not that which severs us from her. Thus man was brought up in modesty—and this likewise was the result of a prejudice.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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12c. 1872 AD
The Theological Attack.—“You must arrange that with yourself; for your life is at stake!”—Luther it is who suddenly springs upon us with these words and imagines that we feel the knife at our throats. But we throw him off with the words of one higher and more considerate than he: “We need form no opinion in regard to this or that matter, and thus save our souls from trouble. For, by their very nature, the things themselves cannot compel us to express an opinion.”
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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13c. 1872 AD
Doubt As Sin.—Christianity has done all it possibly could to draw a circle round itself, and has even gone so far as to declare doubt itself to be a sin. We are to be precipitated into faith by a miracle, without the help of reason, after which we are to float in it as the clearest and least equivocal of elements—a mere glance at some solid ground, the thought that we exist for some purpose other than floating, the least movement of our amphibious nature: all this is a sin! Let it be noted that, following this decision, the proofs and demonstration of the faith, and all meditations upon its origin, are prohibited as sinful. Christianity wants blindness and frenzy and an eternal swan-song above the waves under which reason has been drowned!
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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14c. 1872 AD
Our Valuations.—All actions may be referred back to valuations, and all valuations are either one's own or adopted, the latter being by far the more numerous. Why do we adopt them? Through fear, i.e. we think it more advisable to pretend that they are our own, and so well do we accustom ourselves to do so that it at last becomes second nature to us. A valuation of our own, which is the appreciation of a thing in accordance with the pleasure or displeasure it causes us and no one else, is something very rare indeed!—But must not our valuation of our neighbour—which is prompted by the motive that we adopt his valuation in most cases—proceed from ourselves and by our own decision? Of course, but then we come to these decisions during our childhood, and seldom change them. We often remain during our whole lifetime the dupes of our childish and accustomed judgments in our manner of judging our fellow-men (their minds, rank, morality, character, and reprehensibility), and we find it necessary to subscribe to their valuations.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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16c. 1872 AD
Happiness in Pity.—If, as is the case among the Hindus, we decree the end and aim of all intellectual activity to be the knowledge of human misery, and if for generation after generation this dreadful resolution be steadily adhered to, pity in the eyes of such men of hereditary pessimism comes to have a new value as a preserver of life, something that helps to make existence endurable, although it may seem worthy of being rejected with horror and disgust. Pity becomes an antidote to suicide, a sentiment which brings pleasure with it and enables us to taste superiority in small doses. It gives some diversion to our minds, makes our hearts full, banishes fear and lethargy, and incites us to speak, to complain, or to act: it is a relative happiness when compared with the misery of the knowledge that hampers the individual on every side, bewilders him, and takes away his breath. Happiness, however, no matter of what nature it may be, gives us air and light and freedom of movement.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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18c. 1872 AD
At the Parting of the Ways.—Shame! You wish to form part of a system in which you must be a wheel, fully and completely, or risk being crushed by wheels! where it is understood that each one will be that which his superiors make of him! where the seeking for “connections” will form part of one's natural duties! where no one feels himself offended when he has his attention drawn to some one with the remark, “He may be useful to you some time”; where people do not feel ashamed of paying a visit to ask for somebody's intercession, and where they do not even suspect that by such a voluntary submission to these morals, they are once and for all stamped as the common pottery of nature, which others can employ or break up of their free will without feeling in any way responsible for doing so,—just as if one were to say, “People of my type will never be lacking, therefore, do what you will with me! Do not stand on ceremony!”
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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19c. 1872 AD
Striving for Gentleness.—When a vigorous nature has not an inclination towards cruelty, and is not always preoccupied with itself; it involuntarily strives after gentleness—this is its distinctive characteristic. Weak natures, on the other hand, have a tendency towards harsh judgments—they associate themselves with the heroes of the contempt of mankind, the religious or philosophical traducers of existence, or they take up their position behind strict habits and punctilious “callings”: in this way they seek to give themselves a character and a kind of strength. This is likewise done quite involuntarily.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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20c. 1872 AD
Fear and Intelligence.—If that which is now expressly maintained is true, viz. that the cause of the black pigment of the skin must not be sought in light, might this phenomenon perhaps be the ultimate effect of frequent fits of passion accumulated for century after century (and an afflux of blood under the skin)? while in other and more intelligent races the equally frequent spasms of fear and blanching may have resulted in the white colour of the skin?—For the degree of timidity is the standard by which the intelligence may be measured; and the fact that men give themselves up to blind anger is an indication that their animal nature is still near the surface, and is longing for an opportunity to make its presence felt once more. Thus a brownish-grey would probably be the primitive colour of man—something of the ape and the bear, as is only proper.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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21c. 1872 AD
Dissimulation as a Duty.—Kindness has been best developed by the long dissimulation which endeavoured to appear as kindness: wherever great power existed the necessity for dissimulation of this nature was recognised—it inspires security and confidence, and multiplies the actual sum of our physical power. Falsehood, if not actually the mother, is at all events the nurse of kindness. In the same way, honesty has been brought to maturity by the need for a semblance of honesty and integrity: in hereditary aristocracies. The persistent exercise of such a dissimulation ends by bringing about the actual nature of the thing itself: the dissimulation in the long run suppresses itself, and organs and instincts are the unexpected fruits in this garden of hypocrisy.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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22c. 1872 AD
The gracious Memory.—A man of high rank will do well to develop a gracious memory, that is, to note all the good qualities of people and remember them particularly; for in this way he holds them in an agreeable dependence. A man may also act in this way towards himself: whether or not he has a gracious memory determines in the end the superiority, gentleness, or distrust with which he observes his own inclinations and intentions, and finally even the nature of these inclinations and intentions.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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23c. 1872 AD
Domestic Animals, Pets and the Like.—Could there be anything more repugnant than the sentimentality which is shown to plants and animals—and this on the part of a creature who from the very beginning has made such ravages among them as their most ferocious enemy,—and who ends by even claiming affectionate feelings from his weakened and mutilated victims! Before this kind of “nature” man must above all be serious, if he is any sort of a thinking being.
Friedrich Nietzsche / quote
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