Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.
Interpretation
Understanding the science behind natural wonders can diminish the sense of awe they inspire.
Mark Twain's quote suggests that gaining knowledge and understanding about natural phenomena, such as rainbows, can lead to a loss of reverence and wonder. He contrasts the scientific perspective with that of 'savages,' who may marvel at the rainbow without understanding its origins, implying that ignorance can sometimes enhance our appreciation of beauty in nature.
In practice
A discussion on the beauty of rainbows at a nature workshop.
Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
The easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
To a naturalist nothing is indifferent; the humble moss that creeps upon the stone is equally interesting as the lofty pine which so beautifully adorns the valley or the mountain: but to a naturalist who is reading in the face of the rocks the annals of a former world, the mossy covering which obstructs his view, and renders indistinguishable the different species of stone, is no less than a serious subject of regret.
I'm really quite simple. I plant flowers and watch them grow... I stay at home and watch the river flow.
Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there. Diversity in the oceans is even greater.
Many are outspoken about the climate crisis, but conveniently ignore the fact that support for fossil fuels is not just incompatible with curbing emissions but dangerously counterproductive.
As long as one has a garden, one has a future. As long as one has a future, one is alive.
The wooing of the Earth thus implies much more than converting the wilderness into humanized environments. It means also preserving natural environments in which to experience mysteries transcending daily life and from which to recapture, in a Proustian kind of remembrance, the awareness of the cosmic forces that have shaped humankind.
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