Nature can be a difficult thing to define. Sometimes we speak of human nature, the nature of the universe, or the natural world, but whichever way we choose to look at it, when we deliberately live our lives in alignment with nature, we are better able to accept the world around us, lessen our suffering, increase our resilience, and live happier lives. The quotes on nature below have been chosen to help clarify the concept and outline practical ideas to help us perceive life day to day.
The Stoics believed that our individual human nature is part of a wider universal nature and that the nature of the universe around us governs all things. Therefore to be frustrated with the natural order of the world around us is to be frustrated with the very thing that has made us who we are.
They believed that we live in alignment with nature when we follow reason. We can reasonably accept that everything around us can change, decay, transform, or die. We know that houses and cars fall into disrepair if they’re not maintained, that we age and die, and we know that food goes bad. These are all natural functions, and most of us can accept them logically. The difficulty comes when things like this, which are undesirable, happen to us.
Learning to accept the natural way of things when they do occur can go a long way toward preventing avoidable suffering when we are inevitably confronted with them in our own lives.
Quotes on Nature:
“Nature does nothing in vain, and so whatever is, is for the sake of something else.”
– Marcus Aurelius
Every part of me then will be reduced by change into some part of the universe, and that again will change into another part of the universe, and so on forever.
– Marcus Aurelius
“Everything that happens in the world happens in accordance with the nature of the whole, and this nature is a rational one.”
– Epictetus
“This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole, and what is my nature.”
“What should we do then? Make the best use of what is in our power, and treat the rest in accordance with its nature.”
– Epictetus
“We are members of one great body, planted by nature … We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.”
– Seneca
“If you regard your last day not as a punishment but as a law of nature, the breast from which you have banished the dread of death no fear will dare to enter.”
– Seneca
“Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What’s closer to nature’s heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed? Can’t you see? It’s just the same with you—and just as vital to nature.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”
– Epictetus
“Consider that before long you will be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist that you now see, nor any of those who are now living. For all things are formed by nature to change and be turned and to perish in order that other things in continuous succession may exist.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Man’s first attraction is towards the things in accordance with nature; but as soon as he has understanding, or rather become capable of ‘conception’ … and has discerned the order and so to speak harmony that governs conduct, he thereupon esteems this harmony far more highly than all the things for which he originally felt an affection, and by exercise of intelligence and reason infers the conclusion that herein resides the Chief Good of man, the thing that is praiseworthy and desirable for its own sake [i.e., moral virtue].”
– Cato the Younger
“Living virtuously is equal to living in accordance with one’s experience of the actual course of nature.”
– Chrysippus
“If you regard your last day not as a punishment but as a law of nature, the breast from which you have banished the dread of death no fear will dare to enter.”
– Seneca
“Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Nothing is evil which is according to nature.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“The nature according to which one should live Chrysippus takes to be both universal nature and, in particular, human nature. Cleanthes, however, holds that it is only the universal nature that should be followed, and not that of the particular.”
“An animal’s first impulse, say the Stoics, is to self preservation, because nature from the outset endears it to itself, as Chrysippus affirms in the first book of his work On Ends: his words are, ‘The dearest thing to every animal is its own constitution and its consciousness thereof’; for it was not likely that nature should estrange the living thing from itself or that she should leave the creature she has made without either estrangement from or affection for its own constitution. We are forced then to conclude that nature in constituting the animal made it near and dear to itself; for so it comes to repel all that is injurious and give free access to all that is serviceable or akin to it.’ For [animals], say the Stoics, Nature’s rule is to follow the direction of impulse. But when reason by way of a more perfect leadership has been bestowed on the beings we call rational, for them life according to reason rightly becomes the natural life. For reason supervenes to shape impulse scientifically. This is why Zeno was the first (in his treatise On the Nature of Man) to designate as the end ‘life in agreement with nature’ (or living agreeably to nature), which is the same as a virtuous life, virtue being the goal towards which nature guides us. So too Cleanthes in his treatise On Pleasure, as also Posidonius, and Hecato in his work On Ends. Again, living virtuously is equivalent to living in accordance with experience of the actual course of nature, as Chrysippus says in the first book of his De Finibus; for our individual natures are parts of the nature of the whole universe. And this is why the end may be defined as life in accordance with nature, or, in other words, in accordance with our own human nature as well as that of the universe, a life in which we refrain from every action forbidden by the law common to all things, that is to say, the right reason which pervades all things … Diogenes [of Babylon] then expressly declares the end to be to act with good reason in the selection of what is natural. Archedemus says the end is to live in the performance of all befitting actions.”
Every animal, therefore, lives conformably to its natural constitution, and, by Jupiter, in a similar manner every plant lives agreeably to the life which is imparted to it. Only there is this difference between the two, that the latter do not employ any reasoning, or a certain enumeration, in the selection of things which they explore; as they make use of nature alone, because they do not participate of soul; but animals are led to investigate what is proper for them by imaginations and exciting desires. To us, however, Nature gave reason, in order that it might survey everything else, and, together with all things, or rather prior to all things, might direct its attention to Nature herself, so as in an orderly manner to tend to her as to a very splendid and stable mark, and choosing every thing which is consonant to her, might cause us to live in a becoming manner.
– Hierocles
“The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.”
– Marcus Aurelius