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How many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

John Burroughs

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
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
My life has been a fortunate one; I was born under a lucky star. It seems as if both wind and tide had favoured me.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Both Favorite Fortunate Life Lucky Seem Star Tide Under
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 you think you can do it, you can.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Can Do IT Think You
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
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
Fear, love, and hunger were the agents that developed the wits of the lower animals, as they were, of course, the prime factors in developing the intelligence of man.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Agent Animal Course Develop Fear Hunger Intelligence Love Lower Man
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
England is like the margin of a spring-run: near its source, always green, always cool, always moist, comparatively free from frost in winter and from drought in summer.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Always Comparitively Country Drought Green Margin Near Run Source Spring Summer Winter
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

Activity Comercial Like Live Other Participation Political Science Scientific Sociology Spectator Ten Thousand
The city, a place to which one goes to do business, is a place where men overreach each other in the fight for money. But it is not a place in which one can live.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Business Can City Each Fight Live Money One Other Overreach Place
Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Good Little Man Moss Polish Roll Society Stone Thin Travel
I have thought that a good test of civilization, perhaps one of the best, is country life.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Benefit Cicilivzation Country Enjoy Good Perhaps Prevail Safe Test
Whitman was Emerson translated from the abstract into the concrete.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Abstract Concrete Translate Whitman
My motto is never to try to imitate anybody: I have always looked inward and followed the inward voice.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Anybody Follow Imitate Inward Look Motto Try Voice
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
England is not a country of granite and marble, but of chalk, marl, and clay.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Chalk Clay Country Granite Marble Marl
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 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
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

Accept Alone Fast Go Guide Hold Science Sole Take Theology Verifiable
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
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
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
How many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!
JOHN BURROUGHS

Aspiration Flight Free Holiday Human Live Many Poet Realize Song Suggestion
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

Attention Curvet Early Graceful Grass Know Malem Challange Most One Prettier Restrain Sight Spring Warrior
Man has climbed up from some lower animal form, but he has, as it were, pulled the ladder up after him.
JOHN BURROUGHS

After Climb Form Ladder Lower Man Pull Some

How many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

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How many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

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