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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

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
We are beginning to see that money, after all, is not the main thing. The real values cannot be bought and sold.
JOHN BURROUGHS

After All Begin Bought Main Money Real Sold Thing Value
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
To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Air Element Enough Exhilarating Find Morning Refresh Universal Walk Water
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
No one else looks out upon the world so kindly and charitably as the pedestrian; no one else gives and takes so much from the country he passes through.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Charitably Country Else Give Kindly Look Much Pass Pedestrian Take
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
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
There is something very human in this apparent mirth and mockery of the squirrels. It seems to be a sort of ironical laughter, and implies self-conscious pride and exultation in the laughter.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Apparent Conscious Execution Human Ironical Laugh Pride Self Something Sort Squirrels
One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Battle Braten May One Philosophy Summon Till
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
Emerson’s fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during his lifetime by the books he gave to the world.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Book During Emerson Establish Fame Gave Lifetime Thinker World Writer
When a herd of cattle see a strange object, they are not satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and the horse is cured of his fright at the robe, or the meal-bag, or other object, as soon as he can be induced to smell it.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Cattle Cured Each Fright Herd Horse Induce Object One Satisfied Smell Sniff Soon
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
Not so the oven-bird, or the other birds that walk, as the cow-bunting, or the quail, or the crow. They move the head forward with the movement of the feet.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bird Bunt Cow Feet Forward Movement Oven Quall Walk
I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Attend Feeling Funeral History Museum Nature Seldom
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
If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature. And the greatest of these, at least the most constant and always at hand, is nature.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Book Constant Friend Great Life Most Name Nature Precious Resource Three
Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Curiosity Joy Keen Religion Universe
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
Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
JOHN BURROUGHS

All Drawn Easy Men More Nail Rivet Some Very
To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Learn New Path Something Took Yesterday
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
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
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 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
I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Heal Nature Order Put Sense Soothed

If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.

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If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.

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Popular Authors

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