As life nears its end with me, I find myself meditating more and more upon the mystery of its nature and origin, yet without the least hope that I can find out the ways of the Eternal in this or in any other world.
JOHN BURROUGHSAs life nears its end with me, I find myself meditating more and more upon the mystery of its nature and origin, yet without the least hope that I can find out the ways of the Eternal in this or in any other world.
JOHN BURROUGHSEvery species of tree-squirrel seems to be capable of a sort of rudimentary flying, at least of making itself into a parachute, so as to ease or break a fall or a leap from a great height.
JOHN BURROUGHSFor anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice – no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.
JOHN BURROUGHSA man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying.
JOHN BURROUGHSOur 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 BURROUGHSThe 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 BURROUGHSMan 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 BURROUGHSTravel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.
JOHN BURROUGHSTo still others, who again have their human prototypes, it means a struggle, more or less fierce, to keep soul and body together; while to many insect forms, it means death.
JOHN BURROUGHSI am for 100 per cent Americanism, 100 per cent efficiency, and 100 per cent life. I expect to live to be 100 years old.
JOHN BURROUGHSThe 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 BURROUGHSThe geologist is pretty sure to be an evolutionist.
JOHN BURROUGHSOn the same principles, the ornithologist will direct you where to look for the greenlets, the wood-sparrow, or the chewink.
JOHN BURROUGHSThere 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 BURROUGHSThe 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.
JOHN BURROUGHSThe 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