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If you think you can do it, you can.

John Burroughs

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
England is not a country of granite and marble, but of chalk, marl, and clay.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Chalk Clay Country Granite Marble Marl
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
I have discovered the secret of happiness – it is work, either with the hands or the head.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Discover Either Hand Happiness Head Secret Work
The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bird Buoyancy Ecstatic Frame Heart Idea Intense Large Lung Poet Scale Song Suggestion Symbol Top Vehement
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
Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Good Little Man Moss Polish Roll Society Stone Thin Travel
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
Fear, love, and hunger were the agents that developed the wits of the lower animals, as they were, of course, the prime factors in developing the intelligence of man.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Agent Animal Course Develop Fear Hunger Intelligence Love Lower Man
I have discovered the secret of happiness. It is work.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Discover Secret Happiness Work
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
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
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

Afford Bless Complete Congenial Force Heart Man Occupation Outlet Some
We talk of communing with Nature, but ’tis with ourselves we commune.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Communing Nature Ourselves Talk We
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
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

If you think you can do it, you can.

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If you think you can do it, you can.

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