John Burroughs quotes

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

Women are about the best lovers of nature, after all; at least of nature in her milder and more familiar forms. The feminine character, the feminine perceptions, intuitions, delicacy, sympathy, quickness, are more responsive to natural forms and influences than is the masculine mind.

How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.

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

As life nears its end with me, I find myself meditating more and more upon the mystery of its nature and origin, yet without the least hope that I can find out the ways of the Eternal in this or in any other world.

Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness. Only man seems to be endowed with this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intelligence, intelligence that is not primarily concerned with his own safety and well-being but that looks abroad upon things.

The Infinite cannot be measured. The plan of Nature is so immense, but she has no plan, no scheme, but to go on and on forever. What is size, what is time, distance, to the Infinite? Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no space, no great, no small, no beginning, no end.

Without the name, any flower is still more or less a stranger to you. The name betrays its family, its relationship to other flowers, and gives the mind something tangible to grasp. It is very difficult for persons who have had no special training to learn the names of the flowers from the botany.

Wisdom cannot come by railroad or automobile or aeroplane, or be hurried up by telegraph or telephone.

A sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost.

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.

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

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

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. Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art impulse.

The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show anger at the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth.

Leap, and the net will appear.

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

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

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

A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.

Without the name, any flower is still more or less a stranger to you. The name betrays its family, its relationship to other flowers, and gives the mind something tangible to grasp. It is very difficult for persons who have had no special training to learn the names of the flowers from the botany.

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.

A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying.

If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.

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.

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.

If you think you can do it, you can.

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.

When a herd of cattle see a strange object, they are not satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and the horse is cured of his fright at the robe, or the meal-bag, or other object, as soon as he can be induced to smell it. There is a great deal of speculation in the eye of an animal, but very little science.

The type of mind of Whitman's, which seldom or never emerges as a mere mentality, an independent thinking and knowing faculty, but always as a personality, always as a complete human entity, never can expound itself, because its operations are synthetic and not analytic; its mainspring is love and not mere knowledge.

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

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.

I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.

Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness. Only man seems to be endowed with this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intelligence, intelligence that is not primarily concerned with his own safety and well-being but that looks abroad upon things.

When the woodpecker is searching for food, or laying siege to some hidden grub, the sound of his hammer is dead or muffled and is heard but a few yards. It is only upon dry, seasoned timber, freed of its bark, that he beats his reveille to spring and wooes his mate.

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.

Man takes root at his feet, and at best, he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage till he has established communication with the soil by the loving and magnetic touch of his soles to it.

To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another.

The love of nature is a different thing from the love of science, though the two may go together.

We talk of communing with Nature, but 'tis with ourselves we commune... Nature furnishes the conditions - the solitude - and the soul furnishes the entertainment.

England is like the margin of a spring-run: near its source, always green, always cool, always moist, comparatively free from frost in winter and from drought in summer.

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

As with other phases of nature, I have probably loved the rocks more than I have studied them.