Quotes from John James Audubon

Travelling through the breeding places of our species is far from being as interesting to me as it is to inspect the breeding places of the feathery tribes of our country.

My wife determined that my genius should prevail, and that my final success as an ornithologist should be triumphant.

One day I caught four Dolphins, how much I have gazed at these beautiful creatures... as they changed their hue in twenty varieties of richest arrangement of tints.

A few days of idleness have completely sickened me, and given me what is called the blue-devils so severely, that I feel that the sooner I go to work and drive them off, the better.

I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds.

If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.

There is the morass, wherein you plunge up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, whereby one treads down the forests of Labrador; and the unexpected bunting or sylvia which perchance, and indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or hear singing from the ground creeping plant.

In America, business is the first object in view at all times, and rightly it should be so.

Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.

Mathematics was hard, dull work, I thought; geography pleased me more. For my other studies, as well as for dancing, I was quite enthusiastic.

The fact is I am growing old too fast, alas! I feel it, and yet work I will, and may God grant me life to see the last plate of my mammoth work finished.

I feel fully decided that we should all go to Europe together and to work as if an established Partnership for Life consisting of Husband Wife and Children.

The varying modes of flight exhibited by our diurnal birds of prey have always been to me a subject of great interest, especially as by means of them I have found myself enabled to distinguish one species from another, to the farthest extent of my power of vision.

A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those who sang the best.

As I grew up I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with Nature.

The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did the originals appear.

He who follows the feathered inhabitants of the forest and plains, however rough or tangled the paths may be, seldom fails to obtain the objects of his pursuit, provided he be possessed of due enthusiasm and perseverance.

Because my father was often absent on naval duty, my mother suffered me to do much as I pleased