Nature

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Pistyll Rhaeadr, Wales

The poetry of the earth is never dead. 

John Keats

Snowdon

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. 

Lao Tzu

If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere. 

Vincent Van Gogh

Wales

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

Scotland...

The other day, reading GB's excellent post link here of Scotland triggered memories of my trip to Scotland. Here are some of the pictures of the beautiful, lovely country when I visited.
(All pictures enlarge on clicking)

Rumbling Bridge, Perth

I do not know exactly where these places are but somewhere near Glencoe. We just stopped on our way when we found beautiful spots to take pictures.

A person lucky enough to reside in such beauty, told us that during some invasion, (I don't remember the name) people hid in the valley between the hills of the above picture. I believe he called it Hell's valley.

In spring, these rugged mountains become more beautiful with the green vegetation and wildlife and the over flowing rivers. I never went here in spring.

The river was frozen. We went in January.

Of Literature and Translations

It is impossible to enjoy a book if one does not have sufficient proficiency in the language that it is written.
And by reading, I only refer to reading for pleasure, not the one specifically designed to analyse, explore themes and hidden meanings and guess at what made the writer create such a work of art.
I believe that while it enables one to broaden his thinking and ideas, to me, it kills the pleasure of reading for fun. ;))

We rely on translations to read books in languages foreign to us. Literature and books are one of the best ways to get to know a culture, the history of a region and community.

Translations are extremely difficult. The translator, apart from conveying the right meaning which the author was striving to get at, must be very careful to get the image which a reader can readily create on reading the book in the language in which it was meant to be read.

Even a simple idea or a day to day activity can be expressed beautifully by a writer with imagination and skill of the language.
The translator should be able to get the turn of phrase which in the original would sound like a melody.

All said, I would have to say, even the best translations fall short of capturing everything that the original literature conveys.

Freedom

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

- Voltaire

Roelant Savery Painting -Landscape with Birds

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are two freedoms — the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought. 
- Charles Kingsley

"Freedom without the strength to support it and, if need be, defend it, would be a cruel delusion. And the strength to defend freedom can itself only come from widespread industrialisation and the infusion of modern science and technology into the country's economic life."

 - J.N.Tata