William Henry Hudson Quotes

“There are many Green Dragons in this world of wayside inns, even as there are many White Harts, Red Lions, Silent Women and other incredible things ...”

— William Henry Hudson

The blue sky, the brown soil beneath, the grass, the trees, the animals, the wind, and rain, and stars are never strange to me; for I am in and of and am one with them; and my flesh and the soil are one, and the heat in my blood and in the sunshine are one, and the winds and the tempests and my passions are one. I feel the 'strangeness' only with regard to my fellow men, especially in towns, where they exist in conditions unnatural to me, but congenial to them ... In such moments we sometimes feel a kinship with, and are strangely drawn to, the dead, who were not as these; the long, long dead, the men who knew not life in towns, and felt no strangeness in sun and wind and rain.

— William Henry Hudson

“Look into my eyes, and you will see me there
all, all that is in my heart.' 'Oh, I know what I should see there!' ... 'What would you see? Tell me?' 'There is a little black ball in the middle of your eye; I should see myself in it no bigger than that,' and she marked off about an eighth of her little finger-nail. 'There is a pool in the wood, and I look down and see myself there. That is better. Just as large as I am
not small and black like a small, small fly.”

— William Henry Hudson

“This report inflamed my mind to such a degree that I could not rest by night or day for dreaming golden dreams, and considering how to get to that rich district, unknown to civilized men.”

— William Henry Hudson

“Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers
a living prismatic gem that changes its colour with every change of position.”

— William Henry Hudson

“In the evening of that day, after completing my preparations, I supped on the remaining portions of the sloth, not suitable for preservation, roasting bits of fat on the coals and boiling the head and bones into a broth; and after swallowing the liquid I crunched the bones and sucked the marrow ...”

— William Henry Hudson

“The puma is, with the exception of some monkeys, the most playful animal in existence.”

— William Henry Hudson

You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren.

— William Henry Hudson

Animals of all classes, old and young, shrink with instinctive fear from any strange object approaching them.

— William Henry Hudson

“Now that we are cool, he said, and regret that we hurt each other, I am not sorry that it happened.”

— William Henry Hudson

“We know that our senses are subject to decay, that from our middle years they are decaying all the time; but happily it is as if we didn't know and didn't believe.”

— William Henry Hudson

“A lifelong intimacy with animals has got me out of the common notion that they are automata with a slight infusion of intelligence in their composition. The mind in beast and bird, as in man, is the main thing.”

— William Henry Hudson

I am not a lover of lawns. Rather would I see daisies in their thousands, ground ivy, hawkweed, and even the hated plantain with tall stems, and dandelions with splendid flowers and fairy down, than the too - well-tended lawn.

— William Henry Hudson

There are few places in England where you can get so much wildness and desolation of sea and sandhills, wood, green marsh and grey saltings as at Wells in Norfolk.

— William Henry Hudson

“Bear in mind that the children of life are the children of joy; that the lower animals are only unhappy when made so by man; that man alone of all the creatures, has "found out many inventions", the chief of which appears to be the art of making himself miserable, and of seeing all Nature stained with that dark and hateful colour.”

— William Henry Hudson

For here the religion that languishes in crowded cities or steals shame-faced to hide itself in dim churches, flourishes greatly, filling the soul with a solemn joy. Face to face with Nature on the vast hills at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?

— William Henry Hudson