John Burroughs

The human body is a steed that goes freest and longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all riders is…

— John Burroughs

Nature comes home to one most when one is at home. The stranger and traveler finds her a stranger and traveler also.

— John Burroughs

I am for 100 per cent Americanism, 100 per cent efficiency, and 100 per cent life. I expect to live to be 100 years old.

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

The God of the Puritans...was a monster too horrible to contemplate.

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

The red squirrel is more common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larceny about the barns and…

— John Burroughs

Here's how the court put it, and all judges agreed to this. The court said: "There exists and obligation to pursue in…

— John Burroughs

One of the most graceful of warriors is the robin. I know few prettier sights than two males challenging and curveting about…

— John Burroughs

As life nears its end with me, I find myself meditating more and more upon the mystery of its nature and origin,…

— John Burroughs

Even in rugged Scotland, nature is scarcely wilder than a mountain sheep, certainly a good way short of the ferity of the…

— John Burroughs

The poor old earth which has mothered us and nursed us we treat with scant respect. Our awe and veneration we reserve…

— John Burroughs

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency,…

— 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

Maybe that will happen with other countries as well. And so, that's why one of the things that groups like mine that…

— John Burroughs

I am in love with this world . . . I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed…

— John Burroughs

Communing with God is communing with our own hearts, our own best selves, not with something foreign and accidental. Saints and devotees…

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

How many thorns of human nature - hard, sharp, lifeless protuberances that tear and wound us, narrow prejudices, bristling conceits that repel…

— John Burroughs

I do not think I exaggerate the importance or the charms of pedestrianism, or our need as a people to cultivate the…

— John Burroughs

In winter, the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look…

— John Burroughs

I am not going to advocate ... the abandoning of the improved modes of travel; but I am going to brag as…

— 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

“You can get discouraged many times, but you are not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else and stop trying.”

— John Burroughs

Science makes no claim to infallibility; it leaves that claim to be made by theologians.

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

My motto is never to try to imitate anybody: I have always looked inward and followed the inward voice.

— John Burroughs

Sometimes I am worried by the thought of the effect that life in the city will have on coming generations.

— John Burroughs

Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought;…

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

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

— John Burroughs

Emerson stands apart from the other poets and essayists of New England, and of English literature generally, as of another order. He…

— John Burroughs

“Go to the sea or climb the mountain, and with the ruggedest and the savagest you will find likewise the fairest and…

— John Burroughs

The trunk of a tree is like a community where only one generation at a time is engaged in active business, the…

— John Burroughs

In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp. Even on cloudy days, its presence…

— John Burroughs

Oh, Spring is surely coming, Her couriers fill the air; Each morn are new arrivals, Each night her ways prepare; I scent…

— John Burroughs

The pleasure and value of every walk or journey we take may be doubled to us by carefully noting down the impressions…

— John Burroughs