QuoteProject
In traditional societies, nature was seen as one’s wife, but the modern West turned it into a prostitute.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote contrasts traditional and modern views of nature, suggesting a shift from reverence to exploitation.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr's quote highlights the difference between how traditional societies viewed nature as a nurturing and integral part of life, akin to a wife, and how modern Western societies tend to objectify and exploit nature, comparing it to a prostitute. This shift reflects a broader philosophical change in our relationship with the natural world, where the sanctity of nature is often disregarded in favor of utilitarianism and exploitation.

Themes

NatureSocietyExploitationTraditionalModern

In practice

Example use cases

During a lecture on environmental philosophy, this quote illustrates the shift in human perspectives on nature.

More from Seyyed Hossein Nasr

The traditional doctrine of man and not the measurement of skulls and footprints is the key for the understanding of that anthropos who, despite the rebellion of Promethean man against Heaven from the period of Renaissance and its aftermath, is still the inner man of every man, the reality which no human being can deny wherever and whenever he lives, the imprint of a theomorphic nature which no historical change and transformation can erase completely from the face of that creature called man.
Seyyed Hossein NasrRead
In the traditional Islamic world, the hierarchy of the arts was not based on whether they were "fine" or "industrial" or "minor". It was based upon the effect of art on the soul of the human being.
Seyyed Hossein NasrRead
The human soul, provided it is pure and strong enough, can contact the unseen in waking life as well as in dreams: all that is required is withdrawal of the soul from the tumult of sensory life.
Seyyed Hossein NasrRead

Similar quotes

Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.
Khalil GibranRead
The garden has taught me to live, to appreciate the times when things are fallow and when they're not.
Jamaica KincaidRead
they ran in the sunlight, creating their own breeze which pressed their dresses into their damp skin. Reaching a kind of square of four locked trees which promised cooling; they flung themselves into the shade to taste their lip sweat and contemplate the wildness that had come upon them so suddenly
Toni MorrisonRead
Forests are the lungs of our land.
Franklin D. RooseveltRead
The sun was a toddler insistently refusing to go to bed: It was past eight thirty and still light.
John GreenRead
Wine is sunlight, held together by water.
Galileo GalileiRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.