"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea"
— Isak Dinesen

"If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"
— Isak Dinesen

"God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.

"
— Isak Dinesen

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever."
— Isak Dinesen

"Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me a chance to do my best. "
— Isak Dinesen (Babette's Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny)

"It's an odd feeling-farewell-there is some envy in it. Men go off to be tested for courage and if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness."
— Isak Dinesen

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."
— John Muir

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

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn."
— John Muir

"Keep close to Nature's heart...and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

"
— John Muir

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."
— John Muir

"In God's wildness lies the hope of the world."
— John Muir

"The power of imagination makes us infinite.
"
— John Muir

""One should go to the woods for safety, if for nothing else.""
— John Muir (Our National Parks)

"Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal."
— John Muir

"There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties"
— John Muir

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

"As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Viola! Bookshelves!"
— Jan Karon

""Sometimes you have to gag on fancy before you can appreciate plain, th' way I see it. For too many years, I ate fancy, I dressed fancy, I talked fancy. A while back, I decided to start talkin' th' way I was raised t' talk, and for th' first time in forty years, I can understand what I'm sayin'.""
— Jan Karon

"The firefly only shines when on the wing, So it is with us--when we stop, we darken."
— Jan Karon (At Home in Mitford)

"I dream my painting and I paint my dream."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"It is good to love many things, for therein lies strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done with love is well done."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"Love is eternal -- the aspect may change, but not the essence There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. And love makes one calmer about many things, and that way, one is more fit for one's work."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"But for one's health as you say, it is very necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening...like a light in the midst of the darkness."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream."
— Vincent Van Gogh

"...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?"
— Vincent Van Gogh

"If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere."
— Vincent Van Gogh

""If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.""
— Vincent Van Gogh

"Believe there is a great power silently working all things
for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.

"
— Beatrix Potter

"Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality. "
— Beatrix Potter

"There's something delicious about writing the first words of a story, you never quite know where they'll take you.

~From the movie miss potter"
— Beatrix Potter

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"Life, with it's rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit"
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time)

"No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I've been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. I've learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won't stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"In my dreams, I never have an age."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly."
— Madeleine L'Engle