The earth incites the wonder and admiration of man even though he is imperfect and his understanding greatly limited.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values... God made life simple. It is man who complicates it.
The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
Teaching man his relatively small sphere in the creation, it also encourages him by its lessons of the unity of Nature and shows him that his power of comprehension allies him with the great intelligence over-reaching all.
A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.
The essence of a man is found in his faults.
The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
The presentations and conceptions of the average man of the world are formed and dominated, not by the full and pure desire for knowledge as an end in itself, but by the struggle to adapt himself favourably to the conditions of life.
Man does find in Nature deliverance from himself, oblivion of his past, with peace and purity!
Man is capable of every great heroism; it was man who found a means of conquering the formidable obstacles of his environment, establishing himself lord of the earth, and laying the foundations of civilization.
It is in his knowledge that man has found his greatness and his happiness, the high superiority which he holds over the other animals who inhabit the earth with him, and consequently no ignorance is probably without loss to him, no error without evil.