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Nature furnishes the conditions – the solitude – and the soul furnishes the entertainment.

John Burroughs

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
To many forms of life of our northern lands, winter means a long sleep; to others, it means what it means to many fortunate human beings – travels in warm climes.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Being Clime Firtunnate Human Life Many Mean Northern Sleep Travel Warm Winter
The geologist is pretty sure to be an evolutionist.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Exolutionist Geologist Pretty Sure
Without the name, any flower is still more or less a stranger to you. The name betrays its family, its relationship to other flowers, and gives the mind something tangible to grasp. It is very difficult for persons who have had no special training to learn the names of the flowers from the botany.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Flower Less More Name Still Strange Without
I went to the Lake District to see what kind of a country it could be that would produce a Wordsworth.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Country District Lake Produce See Wordsworth
A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Blame Else Fail Man Many Somebody Time
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
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
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

Accident Defeat Earth Great Grouch Illness Loss Privation Struggle Suffer Undergone Want
Every 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 BURROUGHS

Break Doubtless Ease Fall Fly Great Height Make Reason Rudimentary Squirrel
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

Attention Curvet Early Graceful Grass Know Malem Challange Most One Prettier Restrain Sight Spring Warrior
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
I am sure I was an evolutionist in the abstract, or by the quality and complexion of my mind, before I read Darwin, but to become an evolutionist in the concrete, and accept the doctrine of the animal origin of man, has not for me been an easy matter.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Abstract Comoextion Concrete Doctrine Each Man Matter Origin People Quality Revolution Sure
How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bristling Bud Climate Concept Congenial Grown Human Many Nature Promise Thorn
The art of the bird is to conceal its nest both as to position and as to material, but now and then it is betrayed into weaving into its structure showy and bizarre bits of this or that, which give its secret away and which seem to violate all the traditions of its kind.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Art Betray Bird Conceal Kind Material Position Secret Tradition Violation Weave
Living in the city is a discordant thing, an unnatural thing.
JOHN BURROUGHS

City Discordant Live Thing Unnatural
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
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
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
England is like the margin of a spring-run: near its source, always green, always cool, always moist, comparatively free from frost in winter and from drought in summer.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Always Comparitively Country Drought Green Margin Near Run Source Spring Summer Winter
I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Attend Feeling Funeral History Museum Nature Seldom
Without the emotion of the beautiful, the sublime, the mysterious, there is no art, no religion, no literature.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Beautiful Emotion Literature Mysterious Religion Sublime
Emerson was such an important figure in our literary history, and in the moral and religious development of our people, that attention cannot be directed to him too often.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Attention Develop Direct Figure History Important Literacy Often People Religion
We now use the word ‘nature’ very much as our fathers used the word ‘God.’
JOHN BURROUGHS

Father God Must Nature Now Our Use Word
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

Apparent Conscious Execution Human Ironical Laugh Pride Self Something Sort Squirrels
Sometimes I am worried by the thought of the effect that life in the city will have on coming generations.
JOHN BURROUGHS

City Come Effect Generation Sometimes Through Worry
The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Heaven Kingdom Mind Place State

Nature furnishes the conditions – the solitude – and the soul furnishes the entertainment.

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Nature furnishes the conditions – the solitude – and the soul furnishes the entertainment.

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