John Lubbock

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

We often hear of people breaking down from overwork but in nine out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety.

If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.

There can be no merit in believing something which you can neither explain nor understand.

A kind word will give more pleasure than a present.

Exercise of the muscles keeps the body in health, and exercise of the brain brings peace of mind.

Fresh air is as good for the mind as for the body. Nature always seems trying to talk to us as if she had some great secret to tell. And so she has.

Do what you will, only do something.

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught as that every child should be given the wish to learn.

Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.

A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.

All those who love Nature she loves in return, and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called, but with the best things of this world-not with money and titles, horses and carriages, but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind.

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.

There is nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety.

Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when we have not.

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.

The whole value of solitude depends upon one's self; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.

Happy indeed is the naturalist: to him the seasons come round like old friends; to him the birds sing: as he walks along, the flowers stretch out from the hedges, or look up from the ground, and as each year fades away, he looks back on a fresh store of happy memories.