Nature is sanative, refining, elevating. How cunningly she hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses, and violets, and morning dew! Every inch of the mountains is scarred by unimaginable convulsions, yet the new day is purple with the bloom of youth and love. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Progress of Culture”

Nothing is so beautiful as spring – when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush Thrushs eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing. – Gerard Manley Hopkins

Solitary converse with nature; for thence are ejaculated sweet and dreadful words never uttered in libraries. Ah! the spring days, the summer dawns, and October woods! – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims, “Inspiration”