Philosopher Quotes on Nature

“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”

The universe is flux, life is opinion.

“Of Fronto, to how much envy and fraud and hypocrisy the state of a tyrannous king is subject unto, and how they who are commonly called [Eupatridas Gk.], i.e. nobly born, are in some sort incapable, or void of natural affection.”

I, 8

“Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 36

“Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility.”

Meditations, Book VII | VII, 28

“Consider thyself to be dead , and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.”

Meditations, Book VII | Variant: Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. VII, 56

“Entre oui et non" in L'Envers et l'endroit (1937), translated as "Between Yes and No", in World Review magazine (March 1950), also quoted in The Artist and Political Vision (1982) by Benjamin R. Barber and Michael J. Gargas McGrath”

Don't let them tell us stories. Don't let them say of the man sentenced to death "He is going to pay his debt to society ," but: "They are going to cut off his head." It looks like nothing. But it does make a little difference. And then there are people who prefer to look their fate in the eye .

“Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the world can help us do this?”

Said at the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg (1948); reported in Resistance, Rebellion and Death (translation by Justin O'Brien, 1961), p. 73

“To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being.”

Absurd Creation | Kirilov

“Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature.”

The Rebel(1951) | Part 4: Rebellion and Art

“Those who need myths are indeed poor. Here the gods serve as beds or resting places as the day races across the sky.”

Nuptials (essays)(1938) | "Noces à Tipasa"

“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”

Fortune of the Republic (1878)

“Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome.”

Poems(1847) | Wood-notes , st. 3

“A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes; The lover rooted stays.”

May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | Friendship

“God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.”

Society and Solitude(1870) | Society and Solitude

“Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.”

Society and Solitude(1870) | Art

“Custom reconciles us to everything.”

Part IV Section XVIII

“War ," says Machiavel , "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans." A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature.”

Wikiquote

“A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.”

Introduction On Taste

“It is reconciled in policy; and politics ought to be adjusted, not to human reasonings, but to human nature; of which the reason is but a part; and by no means the greatest part.”

1760s | Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), page 78

“There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity — the law of nature, and of nations.”

On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings(1794) | 28 May 1794

“If conquest constitutes a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them.”

1860s | The Abolition of Landed Property Letter to Robert Applegarth (3 December 1869)

“Consumption is also immediately production, just as in nature the consumption of the elements and chemical substances is the production of the plant.”

Grundrisse(1857-1858) | Introduction, p. 10.

“But capitalist production begets,with the inexorability of a law of Nature,its own negation. It is the negation of negation.”

Das Kapital(Buch I)(1867) | Vol. I, Ch. 32, p. 837.

“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.”

The German Ideology(1845-1846) | Volume I; Part 1; "Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook"; Section A, "Idealism and Materialism ".

“But there is a devil of a difference between barbarians who are fit by nature to be used for anything, and civilized people who apply them selves to everything.”

Grundrisse(1857-1858) | Introduction, p. 25.

“I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray...I am myself the matter of my book.”

Je veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre.

“'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.”

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) | Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond

“The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.”

Book I | Ch. 22. Of Custom (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842)

“There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.”

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) | Book II, Ch. 11. Of Cruelty

“Virtue refuses facility for her companion ... the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.”

Book II | Ch. 11. Of Cruelty (tr. Donald M. Frame)

“Seek truth from thought, not in mouldy books. Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pool.”

Pebbles, Pearls and Gems of the Orient(1882) | "Knowledge and Wisdom", no. 121

“Jesus, son of Mary, went to heaven and his ass remained below, I remain on the earth but my spirit has flown to the sky.”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 135, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Nicholson)

“O heart! weak follower of the weak, That thou shouldst traverse land and sea, In this far place that God to seek Who long ago had come to thee!”

Pebbles, Pearls and Gems of the Orient(1882) | "Presence", no. 519 (Alger. Words ascribed to Rabia)

“We used to be on the earth, ignorant of the earth, Ignorant of the treasure buried within it.”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 39 (Whinfield)

Attributed to Rumi:

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you.”

“The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature.”

Karma Yoga

“If I do an evil action, I must suffer for it; there is no power in this universe to stop or stay it.”

Swâmi Vivekânanda on Râja Yoga (1899), Ch. VI : Pratyâhâra and Dhâraṇâ

“All truth is eternal . Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.”

Pearls of Wisdom

“God is self-evident, impersonal, omniscient, the Knower and the Master of nature, the Lord of all. He is behind all worship and it is being done according to Him, whether we know it or not.”

Pearls of Wisdom

“Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?”

Pearls of Wisdom

“Luxurious food and drinks , in no way protect you from harm. Wealth beyond what is natural, is no more use than an overflowing container. Real value is not generated by theaters, and baths, perfumes or ointments, but by philosophy .”

From the esplanade wall at Oenoanda , now in Turkey , as recorded by Diogenes of Oenoanda

“Natural justice is a symbol or expression of usefulness, to prevent one person from harming or being harmed by another. (31)”

Sovereign Maxims | Variant: Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.

“Sovereign Maxims”

Variant: Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.

“The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity . (15)”

Sovereign Maxims

“Of our desires some are natural and necessary , others are natural but not necessary; and others are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to groundless opinion . (29)”

Sovereign Maxims

“Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state. Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into her own heart, how trivial are her occupations and pursuits! What little arts engross and narrow her mind!”

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), "Matrimony", p. 100

“You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track — the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on.”

Letter to Everina Wollstonecraft (7 November 1787)

“It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.”

Letters Written in Sweden(1796) | Letter 22

“The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.”

The French Revolution , Bk. V, ch. 4 (1794)

“Nothing could be more natural than the developement of the passions, nor more striking than the views of the human heart. What delicate struggles! and uncommonly pretty turns of thought!”

Mary: A Fiction (1788)

“The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be defined is not the unchanging name. Non-existence is called the antecedent of heaven and earth ; Existence is the mother of all things. From eternal non-existence, therefore, we serenely observe the mysterious beginning of the Universe ; From eternal existence we clearly see the apparent distinctions. These two are the same in source and become different when manifested. This sameness is called profundity. Infinite profundity is the gate whence comes the beginning of all parts of the Universe.”

translated by Ch'u Ta-Kao (1904) | Also as Tao called Tao is not Tao.

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery .”

Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English (1972)

“The tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name. The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of creation. Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery. By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real. Yet mystery and reality emerge from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness born from darkness. The beginning of all understanding.”

translated by J.H.McDonald (1996)

“A violent wind does not outlast the morning; a squall of rain does not outlast the day. Such is the course of Nature. And if Nature herself cannot sustain her efforts long, how much less can man!”

Chapter 23 | translated by Lionel Giles

Attributed to Lao Tzu:

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

“There is, therefore, no difficulty in answering such questions as these. What cause was there why the Universe was placed in such a part of Space? and, Why was the Universe created at such a Time? for, if there be no Space beyond the Universe, it was impossible that it should be created in another place; and if there was no Time before, it was impossible it should be created at another time.”

The Mind (begun in September 1723; not completed).

“When I am giving the relation of a thing, remember to abstain from altering either in the matter or manner of speaking, so much, as that, if every one, afterwards, should alter as much, it would at last come to be properly false.”

Diary (7 July 1724).

“The beauty of the world consists wholly of sweet mutual consents, either within itself or with the supreme being.”

The Beauty of the World" (c.1725), from the notebook The Images of Divine Things, The Shadows of Divine Things, The Language and Lessons of Nature (published 1948).

“Whatever in Christ had the nature of satisfaction, was by virtue of His suffering or humiliation; whatever had the nature of merit, was by virtue of His obedience or righteousness.”

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 489.

“A little, wretched, despicable creature; a worm, a mere nothing, and less than nothing; a vile insect that has risen up in contempt against the majesty of Heaven and earth.”

The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners (1734).

“The great bird rises on the wind to a height of a thousand miles. What does it see from on high there in the blue? Is it droves of wild horses galloping? Is it primeval matter whirling in atomic dust? Is it the exhalations that give birth to all things? Is it the blue of the sky itself, or is it only the colour of infinite distance?”

Ch. 1 (tr. Anthony Watson-Gandy and Terence Gordon, from the French of René Grousset, 1952)

“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.”

Zhuangzi | Ch. 8 (tr. Lin Yutang, 1942)

“Resolve your mental energy into abstraction, your physical energy into inaction. Allow yourself to fall in with the natural order of phenomena, without admitting the element of self,—and the empire will be governed.”

Zhuangzi | Ch. 7 (tr. Herbert A. Giles, 1889)

Attributed to Zhuangzi:

“He who knows the activity of Heaven and the activity of man is perfect.”

Attributed to Zhuangzi:

“Just rest in inaction, and things will transform themselves.”

“Every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love - deed -Yes and the power -deed-No And pressing forward honor reality . We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world , So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction , Love powerfully.”

Power and Love" (1926)

“Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?”

Tales of the Hasidim (1947), 1991 Ebook edition, p.251, as quoted in Jewish Currents .

“To win a truly great life for the people of Israel , a great peace is necessary, not a fictitious peace, the dwarfish peace that is no more than a feeble intermission, but a true peace with the neighboring peoples, which alone can render possible a common development of this portion of the earth as the vanguard of the awakening Near East.”

Our Reply" (September 1945), as published in A Land of Two Peoples : Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs (1983) edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr, p. 178 | Variant translation: Only a true peace with neighboring peoples can render possible a common development of this portion of the earth as a vanguard of the awakening of the Near East.

“Variant translation: Only a true peace with neighboring peoples can render possible a common development of this portion of the earth as a vanguard of the awakening of the Near East.”

To win a truly great life for the people of Israel , a great peace is necessary, not a fictitious peace, the dwarfish peace that is no more than a feeble intermission, but a true peace with the neighboring peoples, which alone can render possible a common development of this portion of the earth as the vanguard of the awakening Near East.

“Greatness by nature includes a power , but not a will to power.”

Between Man and Man(1965) | p. 150

“The concept of God was for a long time the place where the idea was kept alive that there are other norms besides those to which nature and society give expression in their operation.”

Thoughts on Religion," Critical Theory: Selected Essays (1995), p. 129.

“The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection can be shown to exist at any time.”

p. 133.

“Although the formulations of science now offer the most advanced knowledge of nature, men continue to use obsolete forms of thought long discarded by scientific theory. In so far as these obsolete forms are superfluous for science, the fact that they persist violated the principle of the economy of thought, that characteristic trait of the bourgeois temper.”

p. 133.

“The disparagement of empirical evidence in favor of a metaphysical world of illusion has its origin in the conflict between the emancipated individual of bourgeois society and his fate within that society.”

p. 138.

“The hypostasis of the particular methods of procedure employed by natural science … results in the view that all theoretical differences which rest on historically conditioned antagonisms of interest are to be settles by a “crucial experiment” rather than by struggle and counter-struggle. The harmonious relation of individuals to one another becomes a fact, therefore, that has even more general character than a law of nature.”

p. 148.

“God, therefore, is the one most simple essence of the entire universe.”

ibid.

“Life, as it exists on Earth in the form of men, animals and plants, is to be found, let us suppose in a high form in the solar and stellar regions. Rather than think that so many stars and parts of the heavens are uninhabited and that this earth of ours alone is peopled – and that with beings perhaps of an inferior type – we will suppose that in every region there are inhabitants, differing in nature by rank and all owing their origin to God, who is the center and circumference of all stellar regions”

De docta ignorantia

“The universe has no circumference , for if it had a center and a circumference there would be some and some thing beyond the world, suppositions which are wholly lacking in truth. Since, therefore, it is impossible that the universe should be enclosed within a corporeal center and corporeal boundary, it is not within our power to understand the universe, whose center and circumference are God . And though the universe cannot be infinite, nevertheless it cannot be conceived as finite since there are no limits within which it could be confined.”

ibid.

“For we see that man is a civil and political animal, and is naturally inclined to civilization.”

De concordantia catholica(The Catholic Concordance) (1434)

“All men strive and hope for nothing other than eternal life in their human nature. For this they instituted purgations of souls and sacred rites, in order to be better adapted in their nature to that eternal life.”

De Pace Fidei(The Peace of Faith) (1453)

“It would be a sign of great simplicity to think that the world was created in six days, or indeed at all in time; [...] Time is a thing posterior to the world. Therefore it would be correctly said that the world was not created in time, but that time had its existence in consequence of the world. For it is the motion of the heaven that has displayed the nature of time.”

Allegories of the Sacred Laws ( Legum allegoriae ), Book I, §2; tr. C. D. Yonge, The works of Philo Judaeus (1854), Vol. 1, pp. 52–53.

“If one adds anything small or great to the queen of virtues, piety, or on the other hand takes something from it, in either case he will change and transform its nature. Addition will beget superstition and subtraction will beget impiety.”

On the Special Laws | 99- 101.

“But some, making no account of the wealth of nature, pursue the wealth of vain opinions. They choose to lean on one who lacks rather than one who has the gift of sight, and with this defective guidance to their steps must of necessity fall.”

On the Virtues | 167.

Attributed to Philo of Alexandria:

“Take pains to know that nothing arose by chance, and that everything in the world came into existence through the providence of God.”

Attributed to Philo of Alexandria:

“Learning is by nature curiosity.”

“We live in a world we ourselves create.”

Wir leben immer in einer Welt, die wir uns selbst bilden.

“Should there not be manifest progress and development but in a higher sense than people have imagined it? ... No one is in his age alone , he builds on the preceding one , this becomes nothing but the foundation of the future , wants to be nothing but that — this is what we are told by the analogy in nature , God ’s speaking exemplary model in all works ! Manifestly so in the human species !”

This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity" [" Auch eine Philosophie zur Geschichte der Menscheit "] (1774), as translated by Michael N. Forster, in Johann Gottlieb von Herder: Philosophical Writings (2002), edited by Michael N. Forster, p. 299

“Nowhere on earth does the rose of happiness blossom without thorns; but what bursts forth out of these thorns is everywhere and in various guises the transient, yet beautiful rose of man’s joy in living .”

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man(1784-91) | Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind , Bk. 8, Ch. 5; as quoted in Johann Gottfried Herder : Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings (2004), edited and translated by

“…nothing in Nature stands still; everything strives and moves forward. If we could only view the first stages of creation, how the kingdoms of nature were built one upon the other, a progression of forward-striving forces would reveal itself in all evolution.”

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man(1784-91) | Book 5, as cited in Frank Teichmann (tr. Jon McAlice), "The Emergence of the Idea of Evolution in the Time of Goethe"

“The two grand tyrants of the Earth, Time and Chance .”

Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man(1784-91)

“We are nothing on earth if we are not in the first place the slaves of a cause, the cause of the peoples, the cause of justice and liberty .”

Letter to Roger Tayeb, December 1961, as cited in Peter Geismar, Fanon (1971), p. 185.

“Why write this book? No one has asked me for it. Especially those to whom it is directed. Well? Well, I reply quite calmly that there are too many idiots in this world. And having said it, I have the burden of proving it.”

Introduction, page 7

“The black is a black man;that is, as the result of a series of aberrations of affect, he is rooted at the core of a universe from which he must be extricated.”

Introduction, page 8

“To destroy the colonial world means nothing less than demolishing the colonist's sector, burying it deep within the earth or banishing it from the territory.”

The Wretched of the Earth(1961) | p. 6 Alternate translation: The destruction of the colonial world is no more and no less that the abolition of one zone, its burial in the depths of the earth or its expulsion from the country.

“All forms of exploitation resemble one another. They all seek the source of their necessity in some edict of a Biblical nature. All forms of exploitation are identical because all of them are applied against the same "object": man.”

Black Skin, White Masks(1952) | p. 88

“Speciesism is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species.”

Ch. 1: All Animals Are Equal

“To be honest, I was somewhat disappointed... It's had effects around the margins, of course, but they have mostly been minor. When I wrote it, I really thought the book would change the world. I know it sounds a little grand now, but at the time the sixties still existed for us. It looked as if real changes were possible, and I let myself believe that this would be one of them. All you have to do is walk around the corner to McDonald's to see how successful I have been.”

Quoted by Michael Specter on the impact of the book Animal Liberation , " The Dangerous Philosopher ", The New Yorker , 6 September 1999.

“The evidence of our own eyes makes it more plausible to believe that the world was not created by any god at all. If, however, we insist on believing in divine creation, we are forced to admit that the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all good. He must be either evil or a bungler.”

The God of Suffering? Project Syndicate , 2008

“Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate -change, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection have molded our nature, so too can our culture.”

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress(1981) | Chapter 6, A New Understanding Of Ethics, p. 172

“Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.”

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress(1981) | Chapter 1, The Origins Of Altruism, p. 3

“The multitude is the productive flesh of the world.”

(62)

“Empire is emerging today as the center that supports the globalization of productive networks and casts its widely inclusive net to try to envelop all power relations within its world order — and yet at the same time it deploys a powerful police function against the new barbarians and the rebellious slaves who threaten its order.”

(20)

“The legacy of modernity is a legacy of fratricidal wars, devastating "development," cruel "civilization," and previously unimagined violence. Erich Auerbach once wrote that tragedy is the only genre that can properly claim realism in Western literature, and perhaps this is true precisely because of the tragedy Western modernity has imposed on the world.”

(46)

“Disobedience to authority is one of the most natural and healthy acts.”

(210)

“We share bodies with two eyes, ten fingers, ten toes; we share life on this earth; we share capitalist regimes of production and exploitation; we share common dreams of a better future.”

Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire | (128)

“All men by nature desire to know.”

Metaphysics Book I, 980a.21 : Opening paragraph of Metaphysics | Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge. | The first sentence is in the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:10

“Nature does not do anything in vain .”

Wikiquote

“The science which has to do with nature clearly concerns itself for the most part with bodies and magnitudes and their properties and movements, but also with the principles of this sort of substance, as many as they may be.”

On the Heavens Book I, pg. 1 ( 350 BCE )

Attributed to Aristotle:

“Man is by nature a political animal.”

Attributed to Aristotle:

“Nature does nothing in vain.”

“Samuel Wilkinson, trans., The System of Nature ( Project Gutenberg e-text ), vol. 1, chap. IX”

It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.

“Date and place of publication unknown. Original publication in French, 1770, as La Système de la nature , under the name of Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud .”

It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.

“If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.”

Samuel Wilkinson, trans., The System of Nature ( Project Gutenberg e-text ), vol. 2, chap. I | Date and place of publication unknown. Original publication in French, 1770, as La Système de la nature , under the name of Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud .

“Samuel Wilkinson, trans., The System of Nature ( Project Gutenberg e-text ), vol. 2, chap. I”

If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.

“Date and place of publication unknown. Original publication in French, 1770, as La Système de la nature , under the name of Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud .”

If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.

“But do not ask me where I am going, As I travel in this limitless world, Where every step I take is my home.”

As translated in The Zen Poetry of Dōgen : Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace (1997) by Steven Heine , p. 61

“Students of the Way must not study Buddhism for the sake of themselves. They must study Buddhism only for the sake of Buddhism. The key to this is to renounce both body and mind without holding anything back and to offer them to the great sea of Buddhism.”

Shobogenzo Zuimonki(1238) | V, 2

Attributed to Dogen:

“Time itself is being, and all being is time.”

Attributed to Dogen:

“When you walk in the mist, you become wet without knowing it.”

Attributed to Dogen:

“Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again.”

“I have already once been a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird and a mute fish in the sea.”

ἤδη γάρ ποτ’ ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τε θάμνος τ’ οἰωνός τε καὶ ἔξαλος ἔλλοπος ἰχθύς.

“For already, sometime, I have been a boy and a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a silent fish in the sea.”

Purifications

“From such honor and such a height of fortune am I, thus fallen to earth, cast down amongst mortals.”

Purifications

“With deep roots Ether plunged into earth.”

On Nature

Attributed to Empedocles:

“There are four roots of all things: bright Zeus, life-giving Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis whose tear-drops are a well-spring to mortals.”