John Burroughs Quotes

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John Burroughs

Profession : Author

Birth : April 3, 1837

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

John Burroughs

There never was a happier or more devoted husband than the male bluebird. He is the gay champion and escort of the female at all times, and while she is sitting, he feeds her regularly.

John Burroughs

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.

John Burroughs

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

John Burroughs

Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the text-books in the schools; but study it yourself in the fields and woods, and you will find it a source of perennial delight.

John Burroughs

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.

John Burroughs

I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.

John Burroughs

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.

John Burroughs

How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.

John Burroughs

The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show anger at the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth.

John Burroughs

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion.

John Burroughs

The pond-lily is a star and easily takes the first place among lilies; and the expeditions to her haunts, and the gathering her where she rocks upon the dark, secluded waters of some pool or lakelet, are the crown and summit of the floral expeditions of summer.

John Burroughs

One of the most graceful of warriors is the robin. I know few prettier sights than two males challenging and curveting about each other upon the grass in early spring. Their attentions to each other are so courteous and restrained.

John Burroughs

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

John Burroughs

The red squirrel is more common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larceny about the barns and grain-fields.

John Burroughs

Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness. Only man seems to be endowed with this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intelligence, intelligence that is not primarily concerned with his own safety and well-being but that looks abroad upon things.

John Burroughs

Living in the city is a discordant thing, an unnatural thing. The city, a place to which one goes to do business, is a place where men overreach each other in the fight for money. But it is not a place in which one can live.

John Burroughs

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

John Burroughs

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.

John Burroughs

The country is more of a wilderness, more of a wild solitude, in the winter than in the summer. The wild comes out. The urban, the cultivated, is hidden or negatived.

John Burroughs