The study of nature is interwoven with the highest mind. You should never trifle with nature.

-Agassiz, (Jean) Louis (Rodolphe)
Attributed.

Nature's way of telling you to slow down.

-Anonymous
Of death. Quoted in Newsweek, 25  Apr1960.

Ars autem deficit ab operatione naturae. Art pales when compared to the workings of nature.

-Aquinas, StThomas
c.1272  Summa Theologia, bk. 3, question 66, article 4.

Natura il fece, e poi roppe la stampa. Nature made him, and then broke the mould.

-Ariosto, Ludovico
  Orlando Furioso, canto10, stanza 84.

Nature, as we say, does nothing without some purpose; and for thepurpose of making mana political animal she has endowed him alone among the animals with the power of reasoned speech.

-Aristotle
c.330  BC  Politics, bk.1, ch.2,1253b (translated by T  A Sinclair).

Nothing has raised more questioning among my critics thanthese wordsönoble, thegrand style† Ithink it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.

-Arnold, Matthew
  On Translating Homer; Last Words.

Time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weightyand solid.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  The Advancement of Learning, bk.1.

The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  The Advancement of Learning, bk.2, ch.5, section1.

The subtlety of nature isgreater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Novum Organum, bk.1, aphorism10.

Natura enim non imperatur, nisi parendo. For we cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Novum Organum, bk.1, aphorism129.

Wise nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret four stories high: and therefore†exceeding tall men had ever very empty heads.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Apophthegms.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.4,'Of Revenge'.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.38,'Of Nature in Men'.

If you would work any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him; or his weakness and disadvantages, and so awe him, or those that have interest in him, and so govern him.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.47,'Of Negotiating'.

The writer must be universal in sympathyand an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

-Barnes,Julian Patrick
  Flaubert's Parrot, ch.10.

Simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive, and virtuous mistress.

-Behan, Brendan Francis
  Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave.

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Romans 2:14.

When Sir Joshua Reynolds died All Nature was degraded; The King dropp'd a tear into the Queen's ear, And all his pictures faded.

-Blake,William
c.1808  Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses.

No sensible person will deny that the works of Nature are in the highest degree simple, necessary and as economical as possible. Therefore machines devised by mankind will doubtlessly likewise attain most success if theyare as far as possible modelled on works of Nature.

-Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso
  De moto animalium.

The only effort worth making is the one it takes to learn the geography of one's own nature.

-Bowles, Paul Frederick
  In the Sunday Times, 23  Jul.