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The common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is to be disposed of, they starve her to death, and the queen herself will sting nothing but royalty, nothing but a rival queen.

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

Crave Lover Nature Observe Unadulterated Unsweetened
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
Nearly every season, I make the acquaintance of one or more new flowers. It takes years to exhaust the botanical treasures of any one considerable neighborhood, unless one makes a dead set at it, like an herbalist.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Acquaintance Botanical Early Every Exhaust Flower More Neighborhood New Season Treasure
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
There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Easier Moral Sermon Spark Stone
Man takes root at his feet, and at best, he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage till he has established communication with the soil by the loving and magnetic touch of his soles to it.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Carriage Communication Establish Feel House Love Magnetic Man More Plant Potted Soil Sole Take Root Touch
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
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
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
Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the text-books in the schools; but study it yourself in the fields and woods, and you will find it a source of perennial delight.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Botany Delight Dull Most People Perennial School Study Taught Young
A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Did Nobody Once Somebody Want
August is the month of the high-sailing hawks. The hen hawk is the most noticeable. He likes the haze and calm of these long, warm days. He is a bird of leisure and seems always at his ease. How beautiful and majestic are his movements!
JOHN BURROUGHS

August Beautiful Calm Ease Hawk Hen High Leisure Majestic Month Most Movement Noticeable Sail
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
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
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
The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Deceptive Difficult Distant Great Lure Opportunity

The common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is to be disposed of, they starve her to death, and the queen herself will sting nothing but royalty, nothing but a rival queen.

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The common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is to be disposed of, they starve her to death, and the queen herself will sting nothing but royalty, nothing but a rival queen.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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