The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.
JOHN BURROUGHSI 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.
More John Burroughs Quotes
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One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
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 -
Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, the exceptional, and links it to the sequence of natural causation.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
When Darwin published his conclusion that man was descended from an apelike ancestor who was again descended from a still lower type.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show anger at the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
To me, nothing else about a tree is so remarkable as the extreme delicacy of the mechanism by which it grows and lives.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
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 -
The building of cities and towns, the cutting down of forests, and the draining of pools and swamps have deprived American birds of their original homes and food supply.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
Father knew me not. All my aspirations in life were a sealed book to him, as much as his peculiar religious experiences were to me.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
Even in rugged Scotland, nature is scarcely wilder than a mountain sheep, certainly a good way short of the ferity of the moose and caribou.
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 -
Secluded waters of some pool or lakelet, are the crown and summit of the floral expeditions of summer.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no space, no great, no small, no beginning, no end.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
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 -
To strong, susceptible characters, the music of nature is not confined to sweet sounds.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
To regard the soul and body as one, or to ascribe to consciousness a physiological origin, is not detracting from its divinity; it is rather conferring divinity upon the body.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
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 -
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 -
One reason, doubtless, why squirrels are so bold and reckless in leaping through the trees is that, if they miss their hold and fall, they sustain no injury.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
I have discovered the secret of happiness – it is work, either with the hands or the head.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
Sometimes I am worried by the thought of the effect that life in the city will have on coming generations.
JOHN BURROUGHS