John Burroughs quote: "Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth."

How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Man takes root at his feet, and at best, he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of life, while a snow-covered plain ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

As with other phases of nature, I have probably loved the rocks more than I have studied them.
JOHN BURROUGHS

You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the text-books in the schools; ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

All sounds are sharper in winter; the air transmits better.
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Leap, and the net will appear.
JOHN BURROUGHS

The human body is a steed that goes freest and longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
JOHN BURROUGHS

A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.
JOHN BURROUGHS

If you think you can do it, you can.
JOHN BURROUGHS

How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of cong...
JOHN BURROUGHS

A plump, well-fed stream is as satisfying to behold as a well-fed animal or a thrifty tree. One sour...
JOHN BURROUGHS

There never was a happier or more devoted husband than the male bluebird. He is the gay champion and...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I crave and seek a natural explanation of all phenomena upon this earth, but the word 'natural&#...
JOHN BURROUGHS

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most serious and significant occupatio...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark o...
JOHN BURROUGHS

In the fields and woods more than anything else all things come to those who wait, because all thing...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and w...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The secret of happiness is something to do.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.
JOHN BURROUGHS

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
JOHN BURROUGHS

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer th...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
JOHN BURROUGHS

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Temperament lies behind mood; behind will, lies the fate of character. Then behind both, the influen...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
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 t...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: "To rise above the little things."
JOHN BURROUGHS

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all -- that has been my religion.
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
JOHN BURROUGHS

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Serene I told my hands and wait, Nor care for wind or tide nor sea; I rave no more 'gainst tim...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Without death and decay, how could life go on?
JOHN BURROUGHS

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I s...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Our flying squirrel is in no proper sense a flyer. On the ground, he is more helpless than a chipmun...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I am for 100 per cent Americanism, 100 per cent efficiency, and 100 per cent life. I expect to live ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The animal world seizes its food in masses little and big, and often gorges itself with it, but the ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The phoebe-bird is a wise architect and perhaps enjoys as great an immunity from danger, both in its...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Women are about the best lovers of nature, after all; at least of nature in her milder and more fami...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.
JOHN BURROUGHS

In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp. Even on cloudy da...
JOHN BURROUGHS

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed b...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is to be disposed of, they starve ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
JOHN BURROUGHS

I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The momen...
JOHN BURROUGHS

It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the real...
JOHN BURROUGHS

England is not a country of granite and marble, but of chalk, marl, and clay.
JOHN BURROUGHS

August is the month of the high-sailing hawks. The hen hawk is the most noticeable. He likes the haz...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One of the most graceful of warriors is the robin. I know few prettier sights than two males challen...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
JOHN BURROUGHS

To regard the soul and body as one, or to ascribe to consciousness a physiological origin, is not de...
JOHN BURROUGHS

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the su...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Without the name, any flower is still more or less a stranger to you. The name betrays its family, i...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The art of the bird is to conceal its nest both as to position and as to material, but now and then ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

When the woodpecker is searching for food, or laying siege to some hidden grub, the sound of his ham...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The type of mind of Whitman's, which seldom or never emerges as a mere mentality, an independent...
JOHN BURROUGHS

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The country is more of a wilderness, more of a wild solitude, in the winter than in the summer. The ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consci...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The life of a swarm of bees is like an active and hazardous campaign of an army: the ranks are being...
JOHN BURROUGHS

One reason, doubtless, why squirrels are so bold and reckless in leaping through the trees is that, ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

If America wishes to preserve her native birds, we must help supply what civilization has taken from...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Living in the city is a discordant thing, an unnatural thing. The city, a place to which one goes to...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The red squirrel is more common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larcen...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The love of nature is a different thing from the love of science, though the two may go together.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Emerson is the spokesman and prophet of youth and of a formative, idealistic age. His is a voice fro...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Literature is an investment of genius which has dividends to all subsequent times
JOHN BURROUGHS

To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, but to imagine your facts is another.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thin...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.
JOHN BURROUGHS

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I...
JOHN BURROUGHS

If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the...
JOHN BURROUGHS

A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

To me - old age is always ten years older than I am.
JOHN BURROUGHS

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: "To rise above little things
JOHN BURROUGHS

The secret of happiness is having something meaningful to do, seeking purpose
JOHN BURROUGHS

Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it. It is not an object to...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind.
JOHN BURROUGHS

It's nothing she would ever have given away. It's value is really sentimental.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion.
JOHN BURROUGHS

To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.
JOHN BURROUGHS

You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in the bush."
JOHN BURROUGHS

That which distinguishes this day from all others is that then both orators and artillerymen shoot b...
JOHN BURROUGHS

To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Time does not become sacred to us until we have lived it.
JOHN BURROUGHS

One can only learn his powers of action by action, and his powers of thought by thinking
JOHN BURROUGHS

If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature...
JOHN BURROUGHS

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self...
JOHN BURROUGHS

If one gains an interest in the history of the earth, he is quite sure to gain an interest in the hi...
JOHN BURROUGHS

In winter, the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the...
JOHN BURROUGHS

A sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Nearly every season, I make the acquaintance of one or more new flowers. It takes years to exhaust t...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Someday is not a day of the week.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle fiv...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Next to the laborer in the fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the soil; and he holds a...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of...
JOHN BURROUGHS

When a herd of cattle see a strange object, they are not satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and...
JOHN BURROUGHS

There is something very human in this apparent mirth and mockery of the squirrels. It seems to be a ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked and defined than that of the birds...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The spirit of man can endure only so much and when it is broken only a miracle can mend it.
JOHN BURROUGHS

The pond-lily is a star and easily takes the first place among lilies; and the expeditions to her ha...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I always feel that I have missed some good fortune if I am away from home when my bees swarm. What a...
JOHN BURROUGHS

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

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle fiv...
JOHN BURROUGHS

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Whitman was Emerson translated from the abstract into the concrete.
JOHN BURROUGHS

Emerson was such an important figure in our literary history, and in the moral and religious develop...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Emerson's fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during his lifetime by the books h...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Emerson stands apart from the other poets and essayists of New England, and of English literature ge...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Even in rugged Scotland, nature is scarcely wilder than a mountain sheep, certainly a good way short...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Some of the animals outsee man, outsmell him, outhear him, outrun him, outswim him, because their li...
JOHN BURROUGHS

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed b...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Most birds are very stiff-necked, like the robin, and as they run or hop upon the ground, carry the ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

To many forms of life of our northern lands, winter means a long sleep; to others, it means what it ...
JOHN BURROUGHS

You can get discouraged many times, but you are not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else...
JOHN BURROUGHS

No one else looks out upon the world so kindly and charitably as the pedestrian; no one else gives a...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The trunk of a tree is like a community where only one generation at a time is engaged in active bus...
JOHN BURROUGHS

All birds are incipient or would-be songsters in the spring. I find corroborative evidence of this e...
JOHN BURROUGHS

I went to the Lake District to see what kind of a country it could be that would produce a Wordswort...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Whitman will always be a strange and unwonted figure among his country's poets, and among Englis...
JOHN BURROUGHS

More than any other poet, Whitman is what we make him; more than any other poet, his greatest value ...
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 t...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Wisdom cannot come by railroad or automobile or aeroplane, or be hurried up by telegraph or telephon...
JOHN BURROUGHS

When Darwin published his conclusion that man was descended from an apelike ancestor who was again d...
JOHN BURROUGHS

Like tens of thousands of others, I have been a spectator of, rather than a participator in, the act...
JOHN BURROUGHS

The queen, I say, is the mother bee; it is undoubtedly complimenting her to call her a queen and inv...
JOHN BURROUGHS

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative
JOHN BURROUGHS

You can fail many times, but you're not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else.
JOHN BURROUGHS

I'm lonely. And I'm lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just h...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Holiness is the very principle of eternal life, the very beginning of eternal life in the heart, and...
JEREMIAH BURROUGHS

I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Bec...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one si...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

He continues to smile expectantly. I take a step back. I don't want to catch whatever he has. He is ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I like, though, that people have a hunger to connect with other people. They're desperate to know th...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's something I n...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chai...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Because I've lived in one room my entire life, working at the same table that you use to pay bills a...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rej...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a child, I was never drawn toward depraved or extreme situations; I really wanted a normal little...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As a child, I was never drawn toward depraved or extreme situations; I really wanted a normal little...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christia...
JEFF BURROUGHS

I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many d...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I think people tend to see the bigger point, which is maybe not fitting in and feeling like you didn...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

[Outside in the rain, paying punters appeared evenly divided between those there to see the bands an...
DAVID BURROUGHS

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing o...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

And by lucky coincidence, here comes a green Mazda pickup with a brown stripe.
ROBBIE BURROUGHS

I'm always prepared for the worst. I was prepared to have the book come out, sell seven copies, ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

If we happened to be in rehearsal downstairs in my room and a neighbor padded across the lawn to rap...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

From Queen Elizabeth, who had her own box, to the street cleaners.
LYNNE BURROUGHS

I think basically it's just bad luck.
ROBBIE BURROUGHS

If it is the same guy, he's been pretty busy.
ROBBIE BURROUGHS

We got a name and tracked him down to the Best Value Inn in Renton.
ROBBIE BURROUGHS

They're not sure of anything yet.
ROBBIE BURROUGHS

About the same time, the people in the pickup truck realized they were being followed and it turned ...
ROBBIE BURROUGHS

He gave up about five minutes later.
ROBBIE BURROUGHS

About everyone on staff helps out for trivia.
KITT BURROUGHS

Unconditional love. That's what this is. I love him, as is, fully. I've had to stop arm wrestling wi...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Stars should not be seen alone. That's why there are so many. Two people should stand together and l...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I told myself, 'All I want is a normal life'. But was that true? I wasn't so sure. Because there was...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I know exactly how that is. To love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. Because they are all you have...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

It has been proven that preserving these properties increases their value.
BEN BURROUGHS

By preserving these neighborhoods, we are creating a draw for tourists and that translates into an e...
BEN BURROUGHS

We are talking about something that cannot be bought. It's our heritage, and it needs to be preserve...
BEN BURROUGHS

You deserve to need me, not to have me.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Augusten very distant tonight. Probably because of my games.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Suddenly, this word fills me with a sense of sadness I haven't felt since childhood. The kind of sad...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

As in a tree, there is more sap in an Arm of the tree, than in a little sprig; but the sprig hath th...
JEREMIAH BURROUGHS

Why am I so anxious? And then it hits me. I'm not anxious, I'm lonely. And I'm lonely in some horrib...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Jesus came to give us life. We don't have to hang on a cross like he did. For him, it was a sacrific...
DILLON BURROUGHS

Use the talents you’ve developed to create goodwill, to ease the burdens of those who are not as f...
LAURA BURROUGHS

I came to think that maybe God was what you believed in because you needed to feel you weren’t alo...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Doctor, if being a bitch is healthy, then I am the healthiest damn woman on the face of the earth
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

My mother began to go crazy. Not in a 'Let's paint the kitchen red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'ga...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emot...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

His toes wriggle in his socks and my first thought is, I want to snip them off with hedge trimmers. ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Never work with children, puppies or bulimics
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Nothing surprises me now," I tell him. I am stoic. I am Joan of Arc, with liver damage and an unused...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Freshly brainwashed from rehab, I carry the bottle into the bathroom. I hold it up to the light. See...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

If you're gay and live in New York and don't go to gym, eventually they come for you.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

I once read about a guy who lost his arms in a fire. The nurse took pity on him and gave him a hand ...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

After I cut off his penis, I sautéed it in rosemary butter and ate it"
"But did you go to a me...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

What I really want is to sit next to someone on an L.L. bean blanket on the beach in the fall and dr...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

There's not enough of me left over.
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.

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John Burroughs

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.

John Burroughs

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