Spreuken over Natuur

Maybe nature is fundamentally ugly, chaotic and complicated. But if it's like that, then I want out.

The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature /were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.

That moderation which nature prescribes, which limits our desires by resources restricted to our needs, has abandoned the field; it has now come to this - that to want only what is enough is a sign both of boorishness and of utter destitution.

It is unfair to blame man too fiercely for being pugnacious; he learned the habit from Nature

Nature in America has always been suspect, on the defensive, cannibalized by progress. In America, every specimen becomes a relic.