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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.

John Burroughs

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

Business Can City Each Fight Live Money One Other Overreach Place
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
The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds.
JOHN BURROUGHS

All Beautiful Bound Clime Endowed Every Grace Know Master Vagabond
Man has climbed up from some lower animal form, but he has, as it were, pulled the ladder up after him.
JOHN BURROUGHS

After Climb Form Ladder Lower Man Pull Some
I have thought that a good test of civilization, perhaps one of the best, is country life.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Benefit Cicilivzation Country Enjoy Good Perhaps Prevail Safe Test
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

August Beautiful Calm Ease Hawk Hen High Leisure Majestic Month Most Movement Noticeable Sail
If America wishes to preserve her native birds, we must help supply what civilization has taken from them.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Civilization Country Help Keep Must Preserve Supply Wish
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

Aspiration Flight Free Holiday Human Live Many Poet Realize Song Suggestion
The geologist is pretty sure to be an evolutionist.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Exolutionist Geologist Pretty Sure
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

Begin Blame Discourage Else Failure Man Many Somebody Stop Times Try
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

Anger Beast Dog Door Known Often Probably Quick Resent Show Slam
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 BURROUGHS

End Eternal Find Meditate More Mystery Nature Near Origin Out Way World Yet
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

Always Among Bardic Country English Figure General Old Peot Prophetic Starin Strange
A sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Equal Frost Fruit Goodbye Marriage Run Sap Sun Sweet Winter
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

Cloud Dispel Great Help Lamp Light Maple October Room Window
There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Advice Bad Certain Earth Hardly Man Positively Take Unless
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
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

Animal Depend Hime Home Many Outfit Outswim Reason Resourcefulness Some Time Upon
The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Chimney Draught Draw Happy Movement Open Something
There is a great deal of speculation in the eye of an animal, but very little science.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Animal Deal Eye Great Little Science Speculation
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

Bee Common Death Dispose Nothing Queen Rival Royalty String Strive
I find that something one gets from Emerson in early life does not leave him when he grows old.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Early Emerson Find Get Grow Leave Old One Something
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
Emerson stands apart from the other poets and essayists of New England, and of English literature generally, as of another order.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Another Country Essayist Generally Literature Orde People Stand
You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Always Divine Near Power Source Think True
Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Crave Lover Nature Observe Unadulterated Unsweetened
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

Agile Chipmunk Fly Flyer Ground Helpless Less Proper Sense Squirrel

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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