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 BURROUGHSTo 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.
More John Burroughs Quotes
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Emerson stands apart from the other poets and essayists of New England, and of English literature generally, as of another order.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
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 -
One of the most graceful of warriors is the robin. I know few prettier sights than two males challenging and curveting about each other upon the grass in early spring. Their attentions to each other are so courteous and restrained.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
I find that something one gets from Emerson in early life does not leave him when he grows old.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
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 -
Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
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 -
In winter, the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
I have discovered the secret of happiness – it is work, either with the hands or the head.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
The feminine character, the feminine perceptions, intuitions, delicacy, sympathy, quickness, are more responsive to natural forms and influences than is the masculine mind.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
JOHN BURROUGHS -
The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.
JOHN BURROUGHS