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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

We are really here to be happy and to make others happy.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Happy Make Other Really
A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Did Nobody Once Somebody Want
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
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
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
The red squirrel is more common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larceny about the barns and grain-fields.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Barn Common Dignify Field Grain Guilty Larceny More Offence Petty Red Squirrel
Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Born Made Naturalist Observation Pain Poet Stack Year
More than any other poet, Whitman is what we make him; more than any other poet, his greatest value is in what he suggests and implies rather than in what he portrays, and more than any other poet must he wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of himself.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Any Great Make More Poet Portray Suggests Understood Value Whitman
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
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
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 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
The feminine character, the feminine perceptions, intuitions, delicacy, sympathy, quickness, are more responsive to natural forms and influences than is the masculine mind.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Character Delicacy Feminine Influence Masculine Mind Perception Quickness Sympathy
On the same principles, the ornithologist will direct you where to look for the greenlets, the wood-sparrow, or the chewink.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Chewink Direct Mark More Ornithologist Principle Same Sparrow Wood
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
To be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bird Elate Life might Nest Reward Simple Spring Thrill Wildflower

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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