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I have discovered the secret of happiness – it is work, either with the hands or the head.

John Burroughs

The trunk of a tree is like a community where only one generation at a time is engaged in active business, the great mass of the population being retired and adding solidity and permanence to the social organism.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Active Business Community Engage Generation Like Time Tree Trunk
Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art impulse.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Affection Appeal Art Foster Human Impulse Inquiry Seductive Sentiment Summer Versatile Wooing
I crave and seek a natural explanation of all phenomena upon this earth, but the word ‘natural’ to me implies more than mere chemistry and physics.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Chemistry Crave Earth Explain Implies More Natural Nature Phenomena Physics Seen World
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
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
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
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
The queen, I say, is the mother bee; it is undoubtedly complimenting her to call her a queen and invest her with regal authority, yet she is a superb creature and looks every inch a queen.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Authority Call Compliment Creature Invest Look Mother Queen Say Superb Undount
Most birds are very stiff-necked, like the robin, and as they run or hop upon the ground, carry the head as if it were riveted to the body.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bird Body Carry Ground Hop Most Neck Rite Run Stiff Upon
Secluded waters of some pool or lakelet, are the crown and summit of the floral expeditions of summer.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Crown Expedition Floral Lakelet Pool Secluded Some Summer Summit Water
There 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 BURROUGHS

Bluebird Champion Devote Escort Fed Female Happy Husband Male More Regular
The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Better Deed Greatest Intention Small
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
All the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.
JOHN BURROUGHS

All Book Friend Read See Walk Want
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
Emerson is the spokesman and prophet of youth and of a formative, idealistic age. His is a voice from the heights which are ever bathed in the sunshine of the spirit.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Age Formative Height Idealistic People Prophet Spirit Spokesman Sunshine Voice Youth

I have discovered the secret of happiness – it is work, either with the hands or the head.

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I have discovered the secret of happiness – it is work, either with the hands or the head.

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