The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
I'm happiest in nature, in trees, rivers, streams, and I'm happiest around my kid - you know that's the funny thing, he is not always in the best of moods, but I am always happiest around him and in nature. Around my family is where I am happiest.
My god is all gods in one. When I see a beautiful sunset, I worship the god of Nature; when I see a hidden action brought to light, I worship the god of Truth; when I see a bad man punished and a good man go free, I worship the god of Justice; when I see a penitent forgiven, I worship the god of Mercy.
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.
Genius learns from nature, its own nature. Talent learns from art.
Children learn what they live.
If a child lives with criticism... he learns to condemn.
If he lives with hostility... he learns to fight.
If he lives with ridicule... he learns to be shy.
If he lives with shame... he learns to be guilty.
If he lives with tolerance... he learns confidence.
If he lives with praise... he learns to appreciate.
If he lives with fairness... he learns about justice
If I could only fancy myself clever, it would be better, but to be a failure of Nature and to know it is not a comfortable lot. It is the last lesson one learns, to be contented with one's inferiority -- but it must be learned.
Nature never hurries: atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work. The lesson one learns from yachting or planting is the manners of Nature; patience with the delays of wind and sun, delays of the seasons, bad weather, excess or lack of water.
Jesus Christ was God - the Personal God become man. He has manifested Himself many times in different forms and these alone are what you can worship. God in His absolute nature is not to be worshipped. Worshipping such God would be nonsense. We have to worship Jesus Christ, the human manifestation, as God. You cannot worship anything higher than the manifestation of God. The sooner you give up the worship of God separate from Christ, the better for you.
I never met the second happiest man, or the first happiest man, so I can't judge where I fall into that category.
The lesson of history is that no one learns.
Man lives only to learn. And if he learns it is because it is the nature of his lot, for good or bad.
To appeal to contemporary man to revert, in this twentieth century, to a pagan-like nature worship in order to restrain technology from further encroachment and devastation of the resources of nature, is a piece of atavistic nonsense.
The man who has the sense of the body being himself cannot possibly worship God as formless; whatever worship he makes will be worship in form alone, not otherwise.
We speak erroneously of "artificial" materials, "synthetics", and so forth. The basis for this erroneous terminology is the notion that Nature has made certain things which we call natural, and everything else is "man-made", ergo artificial. But what one learns in chemistry is that Nature wrote all the rules of structuring; man does not invent chemical structuring rules; he only discovers the rules. All the chemist can do is find out what Nature permits, and any substances that are thus developed or discovered are inherently natural. It is very important to remember that.
Nature is man's inorganic body -- that is to say, nature insofar as it is not the human body. Man lives from nature -- i.e., nature is his body -- and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it is he is not to die. To say that man's physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.