Richard Louv - Nature Quotes

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Prize the natural spaces and shorelines most of all, because once they're gone, with rare exceptions they're gone forever. In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chapparal, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. We require these patches of nature for our mental health and our spiritual resilience.

Richard Louv
In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace.

Richard Louv
Stress reduction, greater physical health, a deeper sense of spirit, more creativity, a sense of play, even a safer life-these are the rewards that await a family then it invites more nature into children's lives.

Richard Louv
As one scientist puts it, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.

Richard Louv
By letting our children lead us to their own special places we can rediscover the joy and wonder of nature.

Richard Louv
Being close to nature, in general, helps boost a child's attention span.

Richard Louv
To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen.

Richard Louv
The times I spent with my children in nature are among my most meaningful memories-and I hope theirs.

Richard Louv
Nature-the sublime, the harsh, and the beautiful-offers something that the street or gated community or computer game cannot. Nature presents the young with something so much greater than they are; it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity.

Richard Louv
Each of us-adult or child-must earn nature's gift by knowing nature directly, however difficult it may be to glean that knowledge in an urban environment.

Richard Louv
What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology?

Richard Louv
Quite simply, when we deny our children nature, we deny them beauty.

Richard Louv
There is another possibility: not the end of nature, but the rebirth of wonder and even joy.

Richard Louv
Children need nature for the healthy development of their senses, and therefore, for learning and creativity.

Richard Louv
All spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and nature is a window into that wonder.

Richard Louv
Nature is imperfectly perfect, filled with loose parts and possibilities, with mud and dust, nettles and sky, transcendent hands-on moments and skinned knees.

Richard Louv
Nature is often overlooked as a healing balm for the emotional hardships in a child's life. You'll likely never see a slick commercial for nature therapy, as you do for the latest antidepressant pharmaceuticals. But parents, educators, and health workers need to know what a useful antidote to emotional and physical stress nature can be. Especially now.

Richard Louv
This seems clear enough: When truly present in nature, we do use all our senses at the same time, which is the optimum state of learning.

Richard Louv
The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable.

Richard Louv
Nature has been taken over by thugs who care absolutely nothing about it. We need to take nature back.

Richard Louv
Time in nature is not leisure time; it's an essential investment in our chidlren's health (and also, by the way, in our own).

Richard Louv
If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun.

Richard Louv
Nature-deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities.

Richard Louv
Nature introduces children to the idea—to the knowing—that they are not alone in this world, and that realities and dimensions exist alongside their own.

Richard Louv
The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.

Richard Louv
Progress does not have to be patented to be worthwhile. Progress can also be measured by our interactions with nature and its preservation. Can we teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem, and the potential for healing?

Richard Louv
The future will belong to the nature-smart-those individuals, families, businesses, and political leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative power of the natural world and who balance the virtual with the real. The more high-tech we become, the more nature we need.

Richard Louv
Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.

Richard Louv
We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children's memories, the adventures we've had together in nature will always exist.

Richard Louv
As the nature deficit grows, another emerging body of scientific evidence indicates that direct exposure to nature is essential for physical and emotional health. For example, new studies suggest that exposure to nature may reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that it can improve all children's cognitive abilities and resistance to negative stresses and depression.

Richard Louv