"How sublime to look down on the..." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson
How sublime to look down on the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet!
More by Thomas Jefferson
“[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.”
“Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.”
“I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.”
More on Nature
“How joyously the young sea-mewLay dreaming on the waters blue,Whereon our little bark had thrownA little shade, the only one;But shadows ever man pursue.”
“The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.”
“Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,Out of the mocking bird's throat, the musical shuttle,. . . .A reminiscence sing.”
More on Wonder
“All my lifeI have been restless--I have felt there is somethingmore wonderful than gloss--than wholeness--than staying at home.”
“Self-knowledge leads to wonder, and wonder to curiosity and investigation, so that nothing interests people more than people, even if only one's own person.”
“Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree... Of course I have to give up, but by then I'm half crazy with the wonder of it--the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches, the hopelessness of my effort. And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.”