Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production.

Consumption is also immediately production, just as in nature the consumption of the elements and chemical substances is the production of the plant.

I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.

Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.

Nature does not complete things. She is chaotic. Man must finish, and he does so by making a garden and building a wall.