black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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 human body is a steed that goes freest and longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all riders is a cheerful heart.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Body Cheerful Freest Heart Highest Human Little Longest Ride Steed Under
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 homing instinct in birds and animals is one of their most remarkable traits: their strong local attachments and their skill in finding their way back when removed to a distance.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Animal Attachment Back Bird Distance Find Home Instinct Remove Strong Treat
Whitman was Emerson translated from the abstract into the concrete.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Abstract Concrete Translate Whitman
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
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 you think you can do it, you can.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Can Do IT Think You
My motto is never to try to imitate anybody: I have always looked inward and followed the inward voice.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Anybody Follow Imitate Inward Look Motto Try Voice
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
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
Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Animal Bird Consciousness Know Probably Self Think
Women are about the best lovers of nature, after all; at least of nature in her milder and more familiar forms.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Familiar Form Least Lover Middle More Nature Women
To still others, who again have their human prototypes, it means a struggle, more or less fierce, to keep soul and body together; while to many insect forms, it means death.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Again Body Death Fierce Human Insect Many Other Prototype Soul Struggle Together
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
Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Christianity Civilization Development Done Eighteen Hundred Science Year

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Burroughs Quotes