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" 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
Sitting
She
Husband
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" 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
Song
Bird
Heart
" Emerson's fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during his lifetime by the books he gave to the world. "
John Burroughs
World
Books
Fame
" There is something very human in this apparent mirth and mockery of the squirrels. It seems to be a sort of ironical laughter, and implies self-conscious pride and exultation in the laughter. "
John Burroughs
Seems
Human
Laughter
" Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality. "
John Burroughs
Real
Traits
Reality
" The animal world seizes its food in masses little and big, and often gorges itself with it, but the vegetable, through the agency of the solvent power of water, absorbs its nourishment molecule by molecule. "
John Burroughs
Power
Big
Animal
" 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. "
John Burroughs
Death
Her
Nothing
" 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
" 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. "
John Burroughs
Wonder
Natural
Me
" Next to the laborer in the fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the soil; and he holds a closer and more vital relation to nature because he is freer and his mind more at leisure. "
John Burroughs
Mind
Leisure
Next
" My life has been a fortunate one; I was born under a lucky star. It seems as if both wind and tide had favoured me. I have suffered no great losses, or defeats, or illness, or accidents, and have undergone no great struggles or privations; I have had no grouch. I have not wanted the earth. "
John Burroughs
Earth
Great
Life
" The spirit of man can endure only so much and when it is broken only a miracle can mend it. "
John Burroughs
Broken
Man
Spirit
" A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. "
John Burroughs
Fail
Man
He
" To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another. "
John Burroughs
Imagination
Facts
Your
" Leap, and the net will appear. "
John Burroughs
Will
Appear
Net
" 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
" Our flying squirrel is in no proper sense a flyer. On the ground, he is more helpless than a chipmunk, because less agile. He can only sail or slide down a steep incline from the top of one tree to the foot of another. "
John Burroughs
Flying
Tree
Top
" Some of the animals outsee man, outsmell him, outhear him, outrun him, outswim him, because their lives depend more upon these special powers than his does; but he can outwit them all because he has the resourcefulness of reason and is at home in many different fields. "
John Burroughs
Man
Reason
Home
" 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
Discouraged
Trying
Man
" 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
" 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
Woods
Yourself
Find
" The secret of happiness is something to do. "
John Burroughs
Happiness
Secret
Something
" 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
" The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds - how many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song! "
John Burroughs
Song
Flight
Beautiful
" The phoebe-bird is a wise architect and perhaps enjoys as great an immunity from danger, both in its person and its nest, as any other bird. Its modest ashen-gray suit is the color of the rocks where it builds, and the moss of which it makes such free use gives to its nest the look of a natural growth or accretion. "
John Burroughs
Great
Growth
Free
" 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
" The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. "
John Burroughs
Wisdom
Great
Opportunity
" A sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost. "
John Burroughs
Sun
Sweet
Marriage
" 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
Know
Grass
Most
" Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral. "
John Burroughs
Moral
Stone
Spark
" Why, we have invented the whole machinery of the supernatural, with its unseen spirits and powers, good and bad, to account for things, because we found the universal everyday nature too cheap, too common, too vulgar. "
John Burroughs
Why
Bad
Good