Sunday, 10 August 2014

Goethe on Nature


"God can be worshipped in no more beautiful way than by the spontaneous welling up from one’s breast of mutual converse with Nature".

"Man in his misguidance has powerfully interfered with nature. He has devastated the forests, and thereby even changed the atmospheric conditions and the climate. Some species of plants and animals have become entirely extinct through man, although they were essential in the economy of Nature. Everywhere the purity of the air is affected by smoke and the like, and the rivers are defiled. These and other things are serious encroachments upon Nature, which men nowadays entirely overlook but which are of the greatest importance, and at once show their evil effect not only upon plants but upon animals as well, the latter not having the endurance and power of resistance of man".

Text: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Image: Goethe by Andy Warhol (1982)

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