John Burroughs Quotes

How readily the bluebirds become our friends and neighbors when we offer them suitable nesting retreats!

Natural history is a matter of observation; it is a harvest which you gather when and where you find it growing. Birds and squirrels and flowers are not always in season, but philosophy we have always with us. It is a crop which we can grow and reap at all times and in all places and it has its own value and brings its own satisfaction.

The universe is so unhuman, that is, it goes its way with so little thought of man. He is but an incident, not an end. We must adjust our notions to the discovery that things are not shaped to him, but that he is shaped to them. The air was not made for his lungs, but he has lungs because there is air; the light was not created for his eye, but he has eyes because there is light. All the forces of nature are going their own way; man avails himself of them, or catches a ride as best he can. If he keeps his seat, he prospers; if he misses his hold and falls, he is crushed.

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice.

I see on a immense scale, and as clearly as in a demonstration in a laboratory, that good comes out of evil; that the impartiality of the Nature Providence is best; that we are made strong by what we overcome; that man is man because he is as free to do evil as to do good; that life is as free to develop hostile forms as to develop friendly; that power waits upon him who earns it; that disease, wars, the unloosened, devastating elemental forces have each and all played their part in developing and hardening man and giving him the heroic fiber.

How much there is in books that one does not want to know, that it would be a mere weariness and burden to the spirit to know.

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

Temperament lies behind mood; behind will, lies the fate of character. Then behind both, the influence of family the tyranny of culture; and finally the power of climate and environment; and we are free, only to the extent we rise above these.

I have loved the feel of the grass under my feet, and the sound of the running streams by my side. The hum of the wind in the tree-tops has always been good music to me, and the face of the fields has often comforted me more than the faces of men.

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: 'To rise above little things'.

You can get discouraged many times, but you are not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else and stop trying.

Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.

The secret of happiness is something to do

All sounds are sharper in winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the same low, sullen growl.

In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.

Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.

In New York and New England the sap starts up in the sugar maple the very day the bluebird arrives, and sugar-making begins forthwith. The bird is generally a mere disembodied voice; a rumor in the air for two or three days before it takes visible shape before you.

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative

One goes to Nature only for hints and half-truths. Her facts are crude until you have absorbed them or translated them ... It is not so much what we see as what the thing seen suggests.

The poor old earth which has mothered us and nursed us we treat with scant respect. Our awe and veneration we reserve for the worlds we know not of. Our senses sell us out. The mud on our shoes disenchants us.

I am not going to advocate ... the abandoning of the improved modes of travel; but I am going to brag as lustily as I can on behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the shining angels second and accompany the man who goes afoot, while all the dark spirits are ever looking out for a chance to ride.

The fuel in the earth will be exhausted in a thousand or more years, and its mineral wealth, but man will find substitutes for these in the winds, the waves, the sun's heat, and so forth.

There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad.

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.

I always feel at home where the sugar maple grows ... glorious in autumn, a fountain of coolness in summer, sugar in its veins, gold in its foliage, warmth in its fibers, and health in it the year round.

One can return to their place of birth, but one cannot go back to your youth.

We cannot walk through life on mountain peaks.

Literature is an investment of genius which has dividends to all subsequent times

We have produced some good walkers and saunterers, and some noted climbers; but as a staple recreation, as a daily practice, the mass of the people dislike and despise walking.

Science makes no claim to infallibility; it leaves that claim to be made by theologians.

I want nothing less than a faith founded upon a rock, faith in the constitution of things. The various man-made creeds are fictitious, like the constellations Orion, Cassiopeia's Chair, the Big Dipper; the only thing real in them is the stars, and the only thing real in the creeds is the soul's aspiration toward the Infinite.

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.

The life of nature we must meet halfway; it is shy, withdrawn, and blends itself with a vast neutral background. We must be initiated; it is an order the secrets of which are well guarded.

If the October days were a cordial like the sub-acids of fruit, these are a tonic like the wine of iron. Drink deep or be careful how you taste this December vintage. The first sip may chill, but a full draught warms and invigorates.

The rocks are not so close akin to us as the soil; they are one more remove from us; but they lie back of all, and are the final source of all ... Time, geologic time, looks out at us from the rocks as from no other objects in the landscape.

The most precious things of life are near at hand, without money and without price. Each of you has the whole wealth of the universe at your very door. All that I ever had, and still have, may be yours by stretching forth your hand and taking it.

If you want to see birds, you must have birds in your heart.

Science is a capital or fund perpetually reinvested; it accumulates, rolls up, is carried forward by every new man. Every man of science has all the science before him to go upon, to set himself up in business with. What an enormous sum Darwin availed himself of and reinvested! Not so in literature; to every poet, to every artist, it is still the first day of creation, so far as the essentials of his task are concerned. Literature is not so much a fund to be reinvested as it is a crop to be ever new-grown.

If you think you can do it, you can.

Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years.

To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.

Now is the time of the illuminated woods ... when every leaf glows like a tiny lamp.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind.

Without death and decay, how could life go on?

Science sees the process of evolution from the outside, as one might a train of cars going by, and resolves it into the physical and mechanical elements, without getting any nearer the reason of its going by, or the point of its departure or destination.

We are made strong by what we overcome.

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter ... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life.

The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.

I came from a race of fishers; trout streams gurgled about the roots of my family tree.

I was born with a chronic anxiety about the weather.

Oh, Spring is surely coming, Her couriers fill the air; Each morn are new arrivals, Each night her ways prepare; I scent her fragrant garments, Her foot is on the stair.

You can fail many times, but you're not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else.

There is a condition or circumstance that has a greater bearing upon the happiness of life than any other. What is it? Something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all people and what a wretched world it would be.

If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature ...

The art of nature is all in the direction of concealment.

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.

For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. I seemed to miss something kindred and precious from my environment
the visible embodiment of the tender sky and wistful soil. What a loss, I said, to coming generations of dwellers in the country
no bluebird in spring!

The pleasure and value of every walk or journey we take may be doubled to us by carefully noting down the impressions it makes upon us.

Nature exists for man no more than she does for monkeys, and is as regardless of his life or pleasure or success as she is of the fleas. Her waves will drown him, her fire burn him, and her earth devour him, her storms and lightning smite him, as if he were only a dog.

One of the hardest lessons we have to learn in this life, and one that many persons never learn, is to see the divine, the celestial, the pure, in the common, the near at hand-to see that heaven lies about us here in this world.

Nature will not be conquered, but gives herself freely to her true lover - to him who revels with her, bathes in her seas, sails her rivers, camps in her woods, and with no mercenary ends, accepts all.

Nature we have always with us, an in exhaustible store-house of that which moves the heart, appeals to the mind and fires the imagination -- health to the body, a stimulus to the intellect, and joy to the soul.

The place to observe nature is where you are.

One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after all, are the weeds.

Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.

The Universe is a pretty big place ... And the one thing I know about nature is it hates to waste anything. So I guess I'd say if it is just us, an awful lot of space is going to waste. The earth is not alone, it is not like a single apple on a tree; there are many apples on the tree, and there are many trees in the orchard.

[T]he cold warms me - after a different fashion from that of the kitchen stove.

The spirit of man can endure only so much and when it is broken only a miracle can mend it.

Mounting toward the upland again, I pause reverently, as the hush and stillness of twilight come upon the woods. It is the sweetest, ripest hour of the day. And as the hermit's evening hymn goes up from the deep solitude below me, I experience that serene exaltation of sentiment of which music, literature, and religion are but the faint types and symbols.

Success in walking is not to let your right foot know what your left foot doeth. Your heart must furnish such music that in keeping time to it your feet will carry you around the globe without knowing it.

The honey-bee's great ambition is to be rich, to lay up great stores, to possess the sweet of every flower that blooms. She is more than provident. Enough will not satisfy her, she must have all she can get by hook or crook.

I still find each day too short..

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion.

One may return to the place of his birth, He cannot go back to his youth.

I am in love with this world ... I have tilled its soil, I have gathered its harvest, I have waited upon its seasons, and always have I reaped what I have sown. I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.

Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.

The lesson in running brooks is that motion is a great purifier and health-producer. When the brook ceases to run, it soon stagnates. It keeps in touch with the great vital currents when it is in motion, and unites with other brooks to help make the river. In motion it soon leaves all mud and sediment behind. Do not proper work and the exercise of will power have the same effect upon our lives?

Love sharpens the eye, the ear, the touch; it quickens the feet, it steadies the hand, it arms against the wet and the cold.
What we love to do, that we do well.
To know is not all; it is only half.
To love is the other half

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.

Then, again, how annoying to be told it is only five miles to the next place when it is really eight or ten!

Love is the measure of life; only so far as we love do we really live.

I am in love with this world. It has been my home. It has been my point of outlook into the universe. I have never bruised myself against it nor tried to use it ignobly.

The atmosphere of our time is fast being cleared of the fumes and deadly gases that arose during the carboniferous age of theology.

O bluebird, welcome back again, Thy azure coat and ruddy vest, Are hues that April loveth best ...

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth. There are no heretics in Nature's church; all are believers, all are communicants. The beauty of natural religion is that you have it all the time; you do not have to seek it afar off in myths and legends, in catacombs, in garbled texts, in miracles of dead saints or wine-bibbing friars. It is of today; it is now and here; it is everywhere.

Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.

When nature made the blue-bird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast.

How many thorns of human nature - hard, sharp, lifeless protuberances that tear and wound us, narrow prejudices, bristling conceits that repel and disgust us - are arrested developments, calcified tendencies, buds of promise that should have lifted a branch up into the sunny day with fruit; and flowers to delight the heart of men, but now all grown hard, petrified, for want of culture and a congenial soil and climate.

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.

Look up at the miracle of the falling snow, - the air a dizzy maze of whirling, eddying flakes, noiselessly transforming the world, the exquisite crystals dropping in ditch and gutter, and disguising in the same suit of spotless livery all objects upon which they fall.

The sunbeams are welcome now. They seem like pure electricity - like friendly and recuperating lightning. Are we led to think electricity abounds only in summer, when we see in the storm-clouds as it were, the veins and ore-beds of it? I imagine it is equally abundant in winter, and more equable and better tempered. Who ever breasted a snowstorm without being excited and exhilarated, as if this meteor had come charged with latent aurorae of the North, as doubtless it has? It is like being pelted with sparks from a battery.

Time does not become sacred to us until we have lived it.

Before the bud swells, before the grass springs, before the plough is started, comes the sugar harvest. It is sequel of the bitter frost; a sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter.