Quotes by Naturalists

Now and then I am asked as to ‘what books a statesman should read,’ and my answer is, poetry and novels – including short stories under the head of novels.
Theodore Roosevelt
High time he had another tutor,' said Larry. 'You leave the house for five minutes and come back and find him disembowelling Moby Dick on the front porch.' 'I'm sure he didn't mean any harm,' said Mother, ' but it was rather silly for him to do it on the veranda.
Gerald Durrell
The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it.
Theodore Roosevelt
It is never worth while to absolutely exhaust one's self or to take big chances unless for an adequate object.
Theodore Roosevelt
I ended my statement to the colored soldiers by saying: "Now, I shall be very sorry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you that I always do;" whereupon my cow-punchers, hunters, and miners solemnly nodded their heads and commented in chorus, exactly as if in a comic opera, "He always does; he always does!
Theodore Roosevelt
The British boy suffers the greatest restraint during the period when the call of nature, the instincts of play and adventure, are most urgent. Naturally, he looks eagerly forward to the time of escape, which he fondly imagines will be when his boyhood is over and he is free of masters.
William Henry Hudson
A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.
Theodore Roosevelt
There is always a sadness about packing. I guess you wonder if where you're going is as good as where you've been.
Richard Proenneke
The President and the Congress are all very well in their way. They can say what they think they think, but it rests with the Supreme Court to decide what they have really thought.
Theodore Roosevelt
Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.
John Muir
The sky is a meadow of wildstar flowers.
Ann Zwinger
When the religious Cowper confesses in the opening lines of his address to the famous Yardley oak, that the sense of awe and reverence it inspired in him would have made him bow himself down and worship it but for the happy fact that his mind was illumined with the knowledge of the truth, he is but saying what many feel without in most cases recognizing the emotion for what it is—the sense of the supernatural in nature.
William Henry Hudson
A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm,waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm likeworship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, theirsongs never cease. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
John Muir
A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.
John James Audubon
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Theodore Roosevelt
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.
Charles Darwin