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The Nature Lover is not looking for mere facts but for meanings, for something he can translate into terms of his own life.

John Burroughs

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
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
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
Emerson stands apart from the other poets and essayists of New England, and of English literature generally, as of another order.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Another Country Essayist Generally Literature Orde People Stand
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
England is like the margin of a spring-run: near its source, always green, always cool, always moist, comparatively free from frost in winter and from drought in summer.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Always Comparitively Country Drought Green Margin Near Run Source Spring Summer Winter
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 emotion of the beautiful, the sublime, the mysterious, there is no art, no religion, no literature.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Beautiful Emotion Literature Mysterious Religion Sublime
Every species of tree-squirrel seems to be capable of a sort of rudimentary flying, at least of making itself into a parachute, so as to ease or break a fall or a leap from a great height.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Break Doubtless Ease Fall Fly Great Height Make Reason Rudimentary Squirrel
Whitman was Emerson translated from the abstract into the concrete.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Abstract Concrete Translate Whitman
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
The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds.
JOHN BURROUGHS

All Beautiful Bound Clime Endowed Every Grace Know Master Vagabond
The life of a swarm of bees is like an active and hazardous campaign of an army: the ranks are being continually depleted and continually recruited.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Active Army Campaign Continue Depleted Hazardous Life Like Swarm Rank Recruit
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

Animal Depend Hime Home Many Outfit Outswim Reason Resourcefulness Some Time Upon
If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Accept Alone Fast Go Guide Hold Science Sole Take Theology Verifiable
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

Body Coinciousnesss Confer Detracting Divinity Physiological Regard Soul Upon

The Nature Lover is not looking for mere facts but for meanings, for something he can translate into terms of his own life.

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The Nature Lover is not looking for mere facts but for meanings, for something he can translate into terms of his own life.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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