It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
Walt Whitman·1860After the dazzle of day is gone, only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars; after the plain of the surface and the breakers have gone, the depths of the ocean show beautiful forms.
Henry Beston·1928Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars? Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night?
Alexander von Humboldt·1814The sun and distant stars appeared to mingle in the perfection of the same natural order, and I felt, in the stillness of the tropical night, how much more alive and near to the heavens was this part of the earth.
