“Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.”
― John Burroughs
“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”
― John Burroughs
“One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.”
― John Burroughs
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”
― 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.”
― John Burroughs
“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”
― John Burroughs
“If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature….”
― John Burroughs
“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.”
― John Burroughs
“How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.”
― John Burroughs
“Leap and the net will appear”
― John Burroughs
“A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.”
― John Burroughs
“The universe is so unhuman, that is, it goes its way with so little thought of man. He is but an incident, not an end. We must adjust our notions to the discovery that things are not shaped to him, but that he is shaped to them. The air was not made for his lungs, but he has lungs because there is air; the light was not created for his eye, but he has eyes because there is light. All the forces of nature are going their own way; man avails himself of them, or catches a ride as best he can. If he keeps his seat, he prospers; if he misses his hold and falls, he is crushed.”
― John Burroughs
“I am in love with this world… I have tilled its soil, I have gathered its harvest, I have waited upon its seasons, and always have I reaped what I have sown. I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.”
― John Burroughs
“I go to books and to nature as the bee goes to a flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.”
― John Burroughs
“For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice.”
― John Burroughs
“Look underfoot. You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don’t despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world.”
― John Burroughs
“The lesson which life constantly repeats is to ‘look under your feet.’
You are always nearer to the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.
Do not despise your own place and hour.
Every place is under the stars.
Every place is the center of the world.”
― John Burroughs
“You can get discouraged many times, but you are not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else and stop trying.”
― John Burroughs
“To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.”
― John Burroughs
“The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.”
― John Burroughs
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.”
― John Burroughs
“The secret of happiness is something to do”
― John Burroughs
“The kingdom of heaven in not a place but a state of mind.”
― John Burroughs
“The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is ‘look under foot.’ You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
”
― John Burroughs
“It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative”
― John Burroughs
“You can fail many times, but you’re not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else.”
― John Burroughs
“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.”
― John Burroughs
“I have loved the feel of the grass under my feet, and the sound of the running streams by my side. The hum of the wind in the tree-tops has always been good music to me, and the face of the fields has often comforted me more than the faces of men.”
― John Burroughs
“Go to the sea or climb the mountain, and with the ruggedest and the savagest you will find likewise the fairest and the most delicate. The greatness and the minuteness of nature pass all understanding.”
― John Burroughs
“Love sharpens the eye, the ear, the touch; it quickens the feet, it steadies the hand, it arms against the wet and the cold.
What we love to do, that we do well.
To know is not all; it is only half.
To love is the other half”
― John Burroughs
“In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.”
― John Burroughs
“The lesson in running brooks is that motion is a great purifier and health-producer. When the brook ceases to run, it soon stagnates. It keeps in touch with the great vital currents when it is in motion, and unites with other brooks to help make the river. In motion it soon leaves all mud and sediment behind. Do not proper work and the exercise of will power have the same effect upon our lives?”
― John Burroughs
“The secret of happiness is something to do.”
― John Burroughs
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, for all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see”
― John Burroughs
“A man is not saved by the truth of the things he believes, but by the truth of his belief- its sincerity, its harmony with his character. The absurdities of the popular religions do not matter; what matters is the lukewarm belief, the empty forms, the shallow conceptions of life and duty. We are prone to think that if the creed is false, the religion is false. Religion is an emotion, an inspiration, a feeling of the Infinite, and may have its root in any creed or no creed… Any creed that ennobles character and opens a door or window upon the deeper meanings of this marvelous universe is good enough to live by, and good enough to die by.”
― John Burroughs
“Science kills credulity and superstition, but to the well-balanced mind it enhances the feeling of wonder, of veneration, and of kinship which we feel in the presence of the miraculous universe.”
― John Burroughs
“Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in
the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at
all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and
marrow of Mother Earth.
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.
The most precious things of life are near at hand, without
money and without price. Each of you has the whole
wealth of the universe at your very door. All that I ever
had, and still have, may be yours by stretching forth your
hand and taking it.”
― John Burroughs
“Nature we have always with us, an in exhaustible store-house of that which moves the heart, appeals to the mind and fires the imagination — health to the body, a stimulus to the intellect, and joy to the soul.”
― John Burroughs
“He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.”
― John Burroughs
“A nation always begins to rot first in its great cities, is indeed perhaps always rotting there, and is saved only by the antiseptic virtues of fresh supplies of country blood.”
― John Burroughs
“To interpret Nature is not to improve upon her: it is to draw her out; it is to have an emotional intercourse with her, absorb her, and reproduce her tinged with the colors of the spirit.”
― John Burroughs
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”
― John Burroughs
“He said afterwards that his ranch life had been the making of him. It had built him up and hardened him physically, and it had opened his eyes to the wealth of manly character among the plainsmen and cattlemen.”
― John Burroughs
“Literature does not grow wild in the woods. Every artist does something more than copy Nature; more comes out in his account than goes into the original experience.”
― John Burroughs
“I am not always aware myself how much pleasure I have had in a walk till I try to share it with my reader. The heat of composition brings out the color and the flavor. We must not forget the illusions of all art. If my reader thinks he does not get from Nature what I get from her, let me remind him that he can hardly know what he has got till he defines it to himself as I do, and throws about it the witchery of words. Literature does not grow wild in the woods. Every artist does something more than copy Nature; more comes out in his account than goes into the original experience.”
― John Burroughs
“A man can get discouraged many times, but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying.”
― John Burroughs
“You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in the bush.”
― John Burroughs
“The President himself is a good deal of a storm,—a man of such abounding energy and ceaseless activity that he sets everything in motion around him wherever he goes.”
― John Burroughs
“Those children,” he said, as he came back, “wanted to see the President of the United States, and I could not disappoint them. They may never have another chance. What a deep impression such things make when we are young!”
― John Burroughs
“SERENE, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,
For, lo! my own shall come to me.”
― John Burroughs