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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

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
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
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
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
We now use the word ‘nature’ very much as our fathers used the word ‘God.’
JOHN BURROUGHS

Father God Must Nature Now Our Use Word
Nothing. The Infinite knows no time, no space, no great, no small, no beginning, no end.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Begin End Great Infinite Know Nothing Small Space Time
Wisdom cannot come by railroad or automobile or aeroplane, or be hurried up by telegraph or telephone.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Automobile Come Furried Railroad Telegraph Telephone Wisdom
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

Arbitrary Causation Evolution Exceptional Greatly Link Out Realm Seem Situation
I am for 100 per cent Americanism, 100 per cent efficiency, and 100 per cent life. I expect to live to be 100 years old.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Country Efficiency Hundred Life Old Person Year
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

Bird City Country Drain Food Forest Home Pool Supply
You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Always Divine Near Power Source Think True
A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Begin Blame Discourage Else Failure Man Many Somebody Stop Times Try
Nature furnishes the conditions – the solitude – and the soul furnishes the entertainment.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Condition Entertainment Furnish Nature Solitude Soul
Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Curiosity Joy Keen Religion Universe
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
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
The love of nature is a different thing from the love of science, though the two may go together.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Different Love May Nature Science Thing Together Two
I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Each Find Short Still Think Through Too
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
I 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.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Abstract Comoextion Concrete Doctrine Each Man Matter Origin People Quality Revolution Sure
The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked and defined than that of the birds. Show a botanist a landscape, and he will tell you where to look for the lady’s-slipper, the columbine, or the harebell.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Botanist Country Define Distribute Heribell Lady Landscape Locality Market Plant Slipper Talk Tell
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
Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Animal Bird Consciousness Know Probably Self Think
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

Build Doubtless Fall Hold Injury Leap Miss One Reason Reckless Squirrels Sustain Tree
Whitman will always be a strange and unwonted figure among his country’s poets, and among English poets generally: a cropping out again, after so many centuries, of the old bardic prophetic strain.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Always Among Bardic Country English Figure General Old Peot Prophetic Starin Strange
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
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

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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