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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

In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp. Even on cloudy days, its presence helps to dispel the gloom.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Cloud Dispel Great Help Lamp Light Maple October Room Window
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
He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Admiration Beauty Equal Marvel Summer Winter Wonder World
How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bristling Bud Climate Concept Congenial Grown Human Many Nature Promise Thorn
The secret of happiness is something to do.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Do Happiness Secret Something
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
Robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; he is one of the family, and seems much nearer to us than those rare, exotic visitants, as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grossbeak, with their distant, high-bred ways.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Breasted Bred Democratic Distant Family Grossbeak High Native Orchard Rose Starling Ways
We are really here to be happy and to make others happy.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Happy Make Other Really
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

Body Cheerful Freest Heart Highest Human Little Longest Ride Steed Under
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
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
There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Advice Bad Certain Earth Hardly Man Positively Take Unless
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
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
The homing instinct in birds and animals is one of their most remarkable traits: their strong local attachments and their skill in finding their way back when removed to a distance.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Animal Attachment Back Bird Distance Find Home Instinct Remove Strong Treat
He is a reversion to an earlier type, the type of the bard, the skald, the poet-seer.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Brad Earlier People Poet Reversion Salad Seer Type

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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