John Burroughs
John Burroughs
John Burroughswas an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the U.S. conservation movement. The first of his essay collections was Wake-Robin in 1871...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth3 April 1837
CountryUnited States of America
mean men perfect
Culture means the perfect and equal development of man on all sides.
work people would-be
There is a condition or circumstance that has a greater bearing upon the happiness of life than any other. What is it? Something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all people and what a wretched world it would be.
summer country wall
One summer day, while I was walking along the country road on the farm where I was born, a section of the stone wall opposite me, and not more than three or four yards distant, suddenly fell down. Amid the general stillness and immobility about me the effect was quite startling. ... It was the sudden summing up of half a century or more of atomic changes in the material of the wall. A grain or two of sand yielded to the pressure of long years, and gravity did the rest.
realizing persons dependent
Few persons realize how much of their happiness, such as it is, is dependent upon their work.
hue coats azure
O bluebird, welcome back again, Thy azure coat and ruddy vest, Are hues that April loveth best....
new-york air two
In New York and New England the sap starts up in the sugar maple the very day the bluebird arrives, and sugar-making begins forthwith. The bird is generally a mere disembodied voice; a rumor in the air for two or three days before it takes visible shape before you.
retreat neighbor bluebird
How readily the bluebirds become our friends and neighbors when we offer them suitable nesting retreats!
angel dark men
I am not going to advocate ... the abandoning of the improved modes of travel; but I am going to brag as lustily as I can on behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the shining angels second and accompany the man who goes afoot, while all the dark spirits are ever looking out for a chance to ride.
goes-on decay life-goes-on
Without death and decay, how could life go on?
eight next annoying
Then, again, how annoying to be told it is only five miles to the next place when it is really eight or ten!
home stranger coming-home
Nature comes home to one most when one is at home. The stranger and traveler finds her a stranger and traveler also.
shoes environmental world
The poor old earth which has mothered us and nursed us we treat with scant respect. Our awe and veneration we reserve for the worlds we know not of. Our senses sell us out. The mud on our shoes disenchants us.
art science men
Science is a capital or fund perpetually reinvested; it accumulates, rolls up, is carried forward by every new man. Every man of science has all the science before him to go upon, to set himself up in business with. What an enormous sum Darwin availed himself of and reinvested! Not so in literature; to every poet, to every artist, it is still the first day of creation, so far as the essentials of his task are concerned. Literature is not so much a fund to be reinvested as it is a crop to be ever new-grown.
journey may pleasure
The pleasure and value of every walk or journey we take may be doubled to us by carefully noting down the impressions it makes upon us.