Our Favorite Quotes

“A true healer is an intermediary to the sacred, cultivating the dual roles of shaman, master of intuited knowledge, and sage, master of scholarly knowledge, connecting above and below, inside and outside, energy and matter.” –Taoist medicine

“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.” –Mark Twain

“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” –John Muir

“The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask.” –Nancy Newhall

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.” –John Muir

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” –Willie Nelson

“In the mountains, worldly attachments are left behind, and in the absence of material distractions, we are opened up to spiritual thought. We should be attempting to carry the spiritual experience of the mountains with us everywhere.” –Jamling Tenzing Norgay

“The comfort you find in the rustle of leaves or the rush of a river isn’t coincidence; it’s connection. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to ensure that connection doesn’t turn into a long-lost echo.” -Unknown

“I have aged. When I look in my polished bronze mirror, there are lines upon my face. I am thickened too and my skin has begun growing loose. I cut myself with my herbs and the scars stay. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I am vain and dissatisfied. But I do not wish myself back. Of course my flesh reaches for the earth. That is where it belongs.” –Madeline Miller

“Make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.” –Hippocrates

“There's a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they're absolutely free. Don't miss so many of them.” –Jo Walton

“Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favor compared with the products of nature, the living cell of the plant, the final result of the rays of the sun, the mother of all life.” –Thomas A. Edison

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.” –Eleanora Duse

“For those who have experienced the joy of being alone with nature there is really little need for me to say much more; for those who have not, no words of mine can even describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected.” –Jane Goodall

“Look deep into nature, and you will understand everything better.” –Albert Einstein

“Though I cannot flee from the world of corruption, I can prepare tea with water from a mountain stream and put my heart to rest.” –Ueda Akinari

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” –Mark Twain

“Earth has no sorrow that earth cannot heal.” –John Muir

“Let the clean air blow the cobwebs from your body. Air is medicine.” –Lillian Russell

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.” –May Sarton

“There is a story we herbalists have conjured up that I particularly enjoy. Cosmeos, a mythical Greek goddess whose name meant harmony and balance, personified radiant health and inner beauty that flowed from a core of harmony and balance. Cosmeos never sought to mask what she was or how she looked; rather, she fed her inner fire with the eternal gifts of the earth. Her beauty was as unique as the flowers growing wild on the hillside and as powerful as the granite bones of the mountain. Wanting to endow the world and its inhabitants with greater beauty, Cosmeos gave to mortals the gifts of herbs, flowers, and other simple pleasures to nourish the body and soul. The modern word cosmetic stems from the Greek word kosmeticos, meaning “skilled at adornment.” This is precisely what Cosmeos is all about. It was never her intent to cover up; she used her creations to revel in who she was. She is one of my favorite goddesses. I envision her as a wild woodland creature running freely through the forests with her sister herbalist Artemis, whose name also has been immortalized in the name of a plant.” –Rosemary Gladstar

“At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough.” –Toni Morrison

“The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask.” –Nancy Newhall

“Come to the woods for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the deep green woods. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill.” –John Muir

“The place where you lose the trail is not necessarily the place where it ends.” –Tom Brown, Jr.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” –Maya Angelou

“Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.” –Karla Wilson Baker

"However mean your life is, meet and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its doors as early in the spring. Cultivate property like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts… Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul." –Henry David Thoreau