...Nature builds up her refined and invisible architecture, with a delicacy eluding our conception, yet with a symmetry and beauty which we are never weary of admiring.
Interpretation
Nature creates intricate and beautiful structures that captivate our admiration despite their invisibility.
In this quote, John Herschel expresses the idea that nature constructs an unseen yet exquisite framework that often goes unnoticed, yet possesses an elegance and harmony that continually draws our appreciation. This reflects the awe-inspiring complexity and artistry found in the natural world, which resonates deeply with our sense of beauty and wonder.
In practice
Quoting this in a lecture about the importance of preserving the environment.
Almost all the greatest discoveries in astronomy have resulted from what we have elsewhere termed Residual Phenomena, of a qualitative or numerical kind, of such portions of the numerical or quantitative results of observation as remain outstanding and unaccounted for, after subducting and allowing for all that would result from the strict application of known principles.
Every student who enters upon a scientific pursuit, especially if at a somewhat advanced period of life, will find not only that he has much to learn, but much also to unlearn.
To the natural philosopher, there is no natural object unimportant or trifling. From the least of Nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons.
For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.
I go to the mountains for an adventure and each time I pray I will get up and down again.
Humbly serving all with their beauty, flowers say more to us about God than anything else. Each one brings a message that the Heavenly Father is right here.
Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.
For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!
It is the same life that emerges in joy through the dust of the earth into numberless waves of flower.
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