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" Even in rugged Scotland, nature is scarcely wilder than a mountain sheep, certainly a good way short of the ferity of the moose and caribou. "
John Burroughs
Short
Sheep
Nature
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" 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. "
John Burroughs
Like
Political
Others
" 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
Dog
Beast
Door
" The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked and defined than that of the birds. Show a botanist a landscape, and he will tell you where to look for the lady's-slipper, the columbine, or the harebell. On the same principles, the ornithologist will direct you where to look for the greenlets, the wood-sparrow, or the chewink. "
John Burroughs
You
Landscape
Birds
" 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. "
John Burroughs
Horse
See
Animal
" To regard the soul and body as one, or to ascribe to consciousness a physiological origin, is not detracting from its divinity; it is rather conferring divinity upon the body. "
John Burroughs
Rather
Consciousness
Body
" 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. "
John Burroughs
October
Tree
Window
" 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. "
John Burroughs
Test
Thought
Life
" 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. "
John Burroughs
Writing
Places
Fish
" We are beginning to see that money, after all, is not the main thing. The real values cannot be bought and sold. "
John Burroughs
Values
Money
Beginning
" August is the month of the high-sailing hawks. The hen hawk is the most noticeable. He likes the haze and calm of these long, warm days. He is a bird of leisure and seems always at his ease. How beautiful and majestic are his movements! "
John Burroughs
Bird
Calm
Long
" To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday. "
John Burroughs
Take
Path
Yesterday
" 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. "
John Burroughs
Precious
Name
Nature
" When Darwin published his conclusion that man was descended from an apelike ancestor who was again descended from a still lower type, most people were shocked by the thought; it was intensely repugnant to their feelings. "
John Burroughs
Again
Feelings
Thought
" 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
Think
Safety
Man
" The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention. "
John Burroughs
Better
Wisdom
Intention
" The Nature Lover is not looking for mere facts but for meanings, for something he can translate into terms of his own life. "
John Burroughs
Nature
He
Own
" My motto is never to try to imitate anybody: I have always looked inward and followed the inward voice. "
John Burroughs
Try
Motto
Never
" 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
Life
Book
Experiences
" Whitman will always be a strange and unwonted figure among his country's poets, and among English poets generally: a cropping out again, after so many centuries, of the old bardic prophetic strain. "
John Burroughs
Old
Will
Always
" We talk of communing with Nature, but 'tis with ourselves we commune... Nature furnishes the conditions - the solitude - and the soul furnishes the entertainment. "
John Burroughs
Nature
Tis
Talk
" My books are, in a way, a record of my life - that part of it that came to flower and fruit in my mind. "
John Burroughs
My Life
Way
Flower
" A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did. "
John Burroughs
Who
Somebody
Nobody
" You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. "
John Burroughs
Think
You
True
" Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion. "
John Burroughs
Religion
Been
Joy
" Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years. "
John Burroughs
Science
Done
Civilization
" 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
Happy
Happiness
Moment
" Emerson is the spokesman and prophet of youth and of a formative, idealistic age. His is a voice from the heights which are ever bathed in the sunshine of the spirit. I find that something one gets from Emerson in early life does not leave him when he grows old. "
John Burroughs
Age
Life
Youth
" Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man. "
John Burroughs
Moss
Society
Stone
" 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
Loving
Best
Man
" Sometimes I am worried by the thought of the effect that life in the city will have on coming generations. "
John Burroughs
Sometimes
Am
City