John Burroughs Quotes

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

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

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.

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

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.

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

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

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

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.

The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.

The gift of perfume to a flower is a special grace like genius or like beauty, and never becomes common or cheap.

I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.

Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.

O bluebird, welcome back again, Thy azure coat and ruddy vest, Are hues that April loveth best.

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

Love is the measure of life; only so far as we love do we really live.

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.

We are made strong by what we overcome.

Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years.

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

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

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

Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea; I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, For lo! my own shall come to me.

If you want to see birds, you must have birds in your heart.

Nature is not benevolent; Nature is just, gives pound for pound, measure for measure, makes no exceptions, never tempers her decrees with mercy, or winks at any infringement of her laws.

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

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Nothing relieves and ventilates the mind like a resolution.

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.

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

What a severe yet master artist old Winter is... No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel.

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood.

A man’s life may stagnate as literally as water may stagnate, and just as motion and direction are the remedy for one, so purpose and activity are the remedy for the other.

If you think you can do it, you can.

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

Serene I fold my hands and wait.

We can outrun the wind and the storm, but we cannot outrun the demon of hurry.

When you bait your hook with your heart, the fish always bite.

How readily the bluebirds become our friends and neighbors when we offer them suitable nesting retreats!

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

Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.

I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.

Oh, Spring is surely coming, Her couriers fill the air; Each morn are new arrivals, Each night her ways prepare; I scent her fragrant garments, Her foot is on the stair.

I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to vegetation. My very thoughts become thirsty, and crave the moisture.

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

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.

The place to observe nature is where you are.

The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.

[T]he cold warms me—after a different fashion from that of the kitchen stove.

Close scrutiny of an object in nature will nearly always yield some significant fact.