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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

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

Cheap Common Everyday Invent Machinery Nature Universal Vulgar
It seems at times as if they possessed some extra sense – the home sense – which operates unerringly.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Extra Home Operate Possess Seem Sense Some Time Unerringly
The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Deceptive Difficult Distant Great Lure Opportunity
The Infinite cannot be measured. The plan of Nature is so immense, but she has no plan, no scheme, but to go on and on forever. What is size, what is time, distance, to the Infinite?
JOHN BURROUGHS

Cannot Forever Go Immense Infinite Measure Nature Plan Scheme
More than any other poet, Whitman is what we make him; more than any other poet, his greatest value is in what he suggests and implies rather than in what he portrays, and more than any other poet must he wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of himself.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Any Great Make More Poet Portray Suggests Understood Value Whitman
One reason, doubtless, why squirrels are so bold and reckless in leaping through the trees is that, if they miss their hold and fall, they sustain no injury.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Build Doubtless Fall Hold Injury Leap Miss One Reason Reckless Squirrels Sustain Tree
Fear, love, and hunger were the agents that developed the wits of the lower animals, as they were, of course, the prime factors in developing the intelligence of man.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Agent Animal Course Develop Fear Hunger Intelligence Love Lower Man
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.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Among Dance Easily Expedition Gather Haunt Little Place Pond Rock She Star Take
Emerson’s fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during his lifetime by the books he gave to the world.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Book During Emerson Establish Fame Gave Lifetime Thinker World Writer
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

Carriage Communication Establish Feel House Love Magnetic Man More Plant Potted Soil Sole Take Root Touch
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

Fact Life Look Lover Mean Mere Nature Own Something Term Translate
The birth of a baby and the blooming of a flower are natural events, but the laboratory methods forever fail to give us the key to the secret of either.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Baby Birth Bloom Either Event Flower Forever Give Key Laboratory Method Secret
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

After Catch Depress Fish Left Low Place Report Shore Vision Write
The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That’s Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Act Always Key Layer Own Speak Start Top Truth Voice
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

Arbitrary Causation Evolution Exceptional Greatly Link Out Realm Seem Situation
Living in the city is a discordant thing, an unnatural thing.
JOHN BURROUGHS

City Discordant Live Thing Unnatural

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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