Quotes from John Burroughs

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.

How beautifully the leaves grow old. How full of light and colour are their last days.

The common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is to be disposed of, they starve her to death, and the queen herself will sting nothing but royalty, nothing but a rival queen.

We are beginning to see that money, after all, is not the main thing. The real values cannot be bought and sold.

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

I am sure I was an evolutionist in the abstract, or by the quality and complexion of my mind, before I read Darwin, but to become an evolutionist in the concrete, and accept the doctrine of the animal origin of man, has not for me been an easy matter.

Emerson was such an important figure in our literary history, and in the moral and religious development of our people, that attention cannot be directed to him too often.

Without the emotion of the beautiful, the sublime, the mysterious, there is no art, no religion, no literature.

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 is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.

Few persons realize how much of their happiness, such as it is, is dependent upon their work.

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

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

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

Writing is reporting what we saw after the vision has left us. It is catching the fish which the tide has left far up on our shores in the low and depressed places.

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

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

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.

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.

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