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
John Burroughs quotes about
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!
atheist men world
Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most serious and significant occupation of his sojourn in the world.
museums funeral feelings
I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
men nails literature
Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
philosophy philosophical battle
One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.
vision tiny lamps
Now is the time of the illuminated woods ... when every leaf glows like a tiny lamp.
literature accepting sole
If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.
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.
beautiful song nature
The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds - how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives - and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!
thinking-of-you retirement short-life
I still find each day too short..
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.
weed garden plant
One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after all, are the weeds.
summer home autumn
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.
truth hints half
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.