Quotes from John Burroughs

England is not a country of granite and marble, but of chalk, marl, and clay.

I crave and seek a natural explanation of all phenomena upon this earth, but the word 'natural' to me implies more than mere chemistry and physics. The birth of a baby and the blooming of a flower are natural events, but the laboratory methods forever fail to give us the key to the secret of either.

We now use the word 'nature' very much as our fathers used the word 'God.'

Like tens of thousands of others, I have been a spectator of, rather than a participator in, the activities - political, commercial, sociological, scientific - of the times in which I have lived.

If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature. And the greatest of these, at least the most constant and always at hand, is nature.

Now is the time of the illuminated woods ... when every leaf glows like a tiny lamp.

It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, the exceptional, and links it to the sequence of natural causation.

We are really here to be happy and to make others happy.

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

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.

One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.

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

The atmosphere of our time is fast being cleared of the fumes and deadly gases that arose during the carboniferous age of theology.

Most birds are very stiff-necked, like the robin, and as they run or hop upon the ground, carry the head as if it were riveted to the body. Not so the oven-bird, or the other birds that walk, as the cow-bunting, or the quail, or the crow. They move the head forward with the movement of the feet.

The human body is a steed that goes freest and longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all riders is a cheerful heart.

Sometimes I am worried by the thought of the effect that life in the city will have on coming generations.

Father knew me not. All my aspirations in life were a sealed book to him, as much as his peculiar religious experiences were to me.

All birds are incipient or would-be songsters in the spring. I find corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing of the cock.

Emerson's fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during his lifetime by the books he gave to the world.

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.

I have thought that a good test of civilization, perhaps one of the best, is country life. Where country life is safe and enjoyable, where many of the conveniences and appliances of the town are joined to the large freedom and large benefits of the country, a high state of civilization prevails.

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

In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp. Even on cloudy days, its presence helps to dispel the gloom.

To see Earth fully we already need to love it