John Burroughs
John Burroughs
John Burroughswas an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the U.S. conservation movement. The first of his essay collections was Wake-Robin in 1871...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth3 April 1837
CountryUnited States of America
summer winter blood
The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood.
men years wind
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.
real eye play
In the printed page the only real things are the paper and the ink; the white spaces play the same part in aiding the eye to take in the meaning of the print as do the black letters.
stars sadness science
IT is reported of Margaret Fuller that she said she accepted the universe. "Gad, she'd better!" retorted Carlyle. Carlyle himself did not accept the universe in a very whole-hearted manner. Looking up at the midnight stars, he exclaimed: "A sad spectacle! If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly; if they be not inhabited, what a waste of space!"
twilight hymns solitude
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.
philosophy flower squirrels
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.
war lying rocks
The rocks have a history; gray and weatherworn, they are veterans of many battles; they have most of them marched in the ranks of vast stone brigades during the ice age; they have been torn from the hills, recruited from the mountaintops, and marshaled on the plains and in the valleys; and now the elemental war is over, there they lie waging a gentle but incessant warfare with time and slowly, oh, so slowly, yielding to its attacks!
men broken miracle
The spirit of man can endure only so much and when it is broken only a miracle can mend it.
weather snow relief
In what bold relief stand out the lives of all walkers of the snow! The snow is a great tell-tale, and blabs as effectually as it obliterates. I go into the woods, and know all that has happened. I cross the fields, and if only a mouse has visited his neighbor, the fact is chronicled.
mean men perfect
Culture means the perfect and equal development of man on all sides.
work people would-be
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.
summer country wall
One summer day, while I was walking along the country road on the farm where I was born, a section of the stone wall opposite me, and not more than three or four yards distant, suddenly fell down. Amid the general stillness and immobility about me the effect was quite startling. ... It was the sudden summing up of half a century or more of atomic changes in the material of the wall. A grain or two of sand yielded to the pressure of long years, and gravity did the rest.
realizing persons dependent
Few persons realize how much of their happiness, such as it is, is dependent upon their work.
hue coats azure
O bluebird, welcome back again, Thy azure coat and ruddy vest, Are hues that April loveth best....