John Burroughs Quotes

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.

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.

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.

Most people were shocked by the thought; it was intensely repugnant to their feelings.

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.

Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.

There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.

The feminine character, the feminine perceptions, intuitions, delicacy, sympathy, quickness, are more responsive to natural forms and influences than is the masculine mind.

When Darwin published his conclusion that man was descended from an apelike ancestor who was again descended from a still lower type.

The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That’s Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that.