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Like tens of thousands of others, I have been a spectator of, rather than a participator in, the activities – political, commercial, sociological, scientific – of the times in which I have lived.

John Burroughs

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
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
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 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
Emerson is the spokesman and prophet of youth and of a formative, idealistic age. His is a voice from the heights which are ever bathed in the sunshine of the spirit.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Age Formative Height Idealistic People Prophet Spirit Spokesman Sunshine Voice Youth
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
Only man seems to be endowed with this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intelligence, intelligence that is not primarily concerned with his own safety and well-being but that looks abroad upon things.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Alon Alone Being Concern Develop Disinterest Endow Intelligence Own Primarily Safety Seem Self
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
Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Born Made Naturalist Observation Pain Poet Stack Year
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
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
Where country life is safe and enjoyable, where many of the conveniences and appliances of the town are joined to the large freedom and large benefits of the country, a high state of civilization prevails.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Appliance Benefit Convenience Country Enjoy Freedom High Join Safe Statem Civilization Town
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
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
All birds are incipient or would-be songsters in the spring. I find corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing of the cock.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Bird Cook Corroborative Crow Evidence Incipient Spring
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

Like tens of thousands of others, I have been a spectator of, rather than a participator in, the activities – political, commercial, sociological, scientific – of the times in which I have lived.

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Like tens of thousands of others, I have been a spectator of, rather than a participator in, the activities – political, commercial, sociological, scientific – of the times in which I have lived.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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