#natur

In 1940, we knew who we were, we knew who the enemy was, we knew the dangers and the issues," he told me when I pressed him for a reading of the struggle against Islamic radicalism. "In our island, we knew we would prevail, that the Americans would be drawn into the fight. It is different today. We don't know who we are, we don't know the issues, and we still do not understand the nature of the enemy. ↗

— Bernard Lewis

#nature

Devising a vocabulary for gardening is like devising a vocabulary for sex. There are the correct Latin names, but most people invent euphemisms. Those who refer to plants by Latin name are considered more expert, if a little pedantic. ↗

— Diane Ackerman

#nature #nature

Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and out American colleges will recede in their public importance whilst they grow richer every year. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#college #emerson #gold #knowledge #wealth

It is only dogs that never bite their masters. ↗

— Thornton Wilder

#nature

Not much makes me feel uncomfortable about sexuality. It’s the most natural thing in the world. I don’t really get why people make such a stink. It’s like being embarrassed of hunger or thirst. ↗

— Chloe Cole

#conned #erotica #undercover-lovers #nature

Formal mathematics is nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your mathematics is. ↗

— Leslie Lamport

#nature

True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. ↗

— Alexander Pope

#wit #writing #nature

Sometimes in the summer evenings they walked up the hill to watch the afterglow clinging to the tops of the western mountains and to feel the breeze drawn into the valley by the rising day-heated air. Usually they stood silently for a while and breathed in peacefulness. Since both were shy they never talked about themselves. Neither knew about the other at all. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#men #mountains #nature #personality #women

It's only human nature for dogs to chase motorbikes ↗

— Peter Tinniswood

#nature

Nature is not the number-one mystery, I’ve learned. It’s the heart that takes top honors. ↗

— Beth Kephart

#mysteries #nature