60 nature quotes that capture the beauty of our earth

Nature offers some of the world's purest and simplest joys.

While the city has its charms, nothing compares to the beauty of a tall tree, the sweet smell of flowers, or the feeling of a fresh breeze on your face.

Though we may sometimes forget it in our busy daily lives, we are inextricably tied with the natural world.

There's evidence that nature is a crucial part of our wellbeing: Studies show that spending time in nature improves cognition, lowers stress, and boosts your mood.

No matter how busy your day may be, take a moment to go outside and enjoy the feeling of the sun on your face, or gaze up at the tallest tree in your neighborhood.

The sublime beauty of rocky mountaintops and sweet wildflower meadows have moved eons of artists and writers to wax poetic about nature's magnificence.

Famous naturalists like John Muir, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau devoted their lives to studying the natural world.

Whether you're a city slicker or a country mouse, these quotes will inspire you to get outside and enjoy the bounty of our planet.

As Muir famously said, “The mountains are calling and I must go.”

Best nature quotes

• “… and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” ― Vincent van Gogh

• “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” — John Muir

• “The earth has its music for those who will listen.” — Reginald Holmes

• “It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one’s sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature.” — Theodore Roosevelt

• “Truly the schemes and wonders of Nature are illimitable.” — Charles Darwin

• “During all these years there existed within me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks.” — John James Audubon

• “If we save our wild places, we will ultimately save ourselves.” — Steve Irwin

• “Nature is also great fun. To pretend that nature isn’t fun is to miss much of the joy of being alive.” — Diane Ackerman

• “Nature is what we know/ —Yet have no art to say— / So impotent Our Wisdom is /To her Simplicity.” — Emily Dickinson,” Nature Is What We See”

• “What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?” — E.M. Forster

• “I wish the world was twice as big ― and half of it was still unexplored.” ― Sir David Frederick Attenborough

• “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”  ― Henri Matisse

• “Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.” ― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

• “The mountains are calling and I must go.” ― John Muir

• “The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.” — D. H. Lawrence

Powerful nature quotes

• “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” ― Henry David Thoreau

• “The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth.” ― Chief Seattle

• “We first share the life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we have shared their cause.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books.” — Theodore Roosevelt

• “But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” — Rachel Carson

• “An organic being is a microcosm — a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and numerous as the stars of heaven.” — Charles Darwin

• “Nature is the art of God.” ― Dante Alighieri

• “As I grew up I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with Nature.” — John James Audubon

• “It used to be said, that in places like this, nature eventually failed to support man, the truth is exactly the reverse, here man failed to support nature.”— David Attenborough

• “We have today to learn to get back into accord with the wisdom of nature and realize again our brotherhood with the animals and with the water and the sea.” — Joseph Campbell

• “To the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” –William Blake

• “Human subtlety... will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.” — Leonardo da Vinci

• “The dewy night unrolls a heaven thickly jeweled with sparkling stars.” ― Virgil

• “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” ― Walt Whitman

• “How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health!” — Henry David Thoreau

Seasonal nature quotes

• “Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” ― Anthony J. D’Angelo

• “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.” ― George Eliot

• “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.” — Rachel Carson

• “‘Is the spring coming?’ he said. ‘What is it like?’...’It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…’” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett

• “Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.” — Faith Baldwin, “American Family”

• “Swim through the serene summer sky.” — Virgil

• “As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see.” — Vincent van Gogh

• “Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “Shed no tear! O shed no tear! /The flower will bloom another year.” — John Keats, “Faery Songs”

• “Spring is beautiful, and summer is perfect for vacations, but autumn brings a longing to get away from the unreal things of life, out into the forest at night with a campfire and the rustling leaves.” — Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

• “Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.” ― George R.R. Martin

• “A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.” ― Marcel Proust

• “When you are in accord with nature, nature will yield its bounty.” — Joseph Campbell

• “Spring is nature’s way of saying, Let’s party!” ― Robin Williams

• “One must have a mind of winter, to regard the frost and the boughs, of the pine-trees crusted with snow.” — Wallace Stevens

Quotes about trees and forests

• “Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods.” — John Muir

• “I became intensely aware of the being-ness of trees.” — Jane Goodall

• “As I walked in the woods I felt what I often feel that nothing can befall me in life, no calamity, no disgrace (leaving me my eyes) to which Nature will not offer a sweet consolation.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.” — Henry David Thoreau

• “This our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” — William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”

• “In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” –Alice Walker

• “A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods.” — Robert Henri

• “Love should be a tree whose roots are deep in the earth, but whose branches extend into heaven.” — Bertrand Russell

• “What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?” — Pablo Neruda

• “The tree of life is growing where the spirit never dies, and the bright light of salvation shines in dark and empty skies.” — Bob Dylan

• “Storms make trees take deeper roots.” ― Dolly Parton

• “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “Not just beautiful, though ― the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me.” ― Haruki Murakami

• “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ― John Muir

• “What about naming trees?...If we have a tree in our name, we want that tree to live.” — Jane Goodall

This article was originally published on TODAY.com