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How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.

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
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

Book Constant Friend Great Life Most Name Nature Precious Resource Three
For 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 BURROUGHS

Always Anything Currency Gold Have Love Must One Patience Pay Price Promise Real Sacrifice Service Work Worth
Nature furnishes the conditions – the solitude – and the soul furnishes the entertainment.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Condition Entertainment Furnish Nature Solitude Soul
It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Architect Crisp Crystal Fire Flake Frost Full Life Sunbean
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

Botanist Country Define Distribute Heribell Lady Landscape Locality Market Plant Slipper Talk Tell
The fine, hair-like rootlets at the bottom and the microscopical cells of the leaves at the top.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bottom Cell Eave Fine Hair Like Microscopical Rootlet Top
Nearly every season, I make the acquaintance of one or more new flowers. It takes years to exhaust the botanical treasures of any one considerable neighborhood, unless one makes a dead set at it, like an herbalist.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Acquaintance Botanical Early Every Exhaust Flower More Neighborhood New Season Treasure
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
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
Most people were shocked by the thought; it was intensely repugnant to their feelings.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Feeling Intensely Most People Repugnant Shock Thought
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

Alon Alone Being Concern Develop Disinterest Endow Intelligence Own Primarily Safety Seem Self
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
Not so the oven-bird, or the other birds that walk, as the cow-bunting, or the quail, or the crow. They move the head forward with the movement of the feet.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bird Bunt Cow Feet Forward Movement Oven Quall Walk
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

Bird Buoyancy Ecstatic Frame Heart Idea Intense Large Lung Poet Scale Song Suggestion Symbol Top Vehement
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

How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.

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How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.

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Popular Authors

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