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

John Burroughs

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John Burroughs
Age: 83 †
Born: 1837
Born: April 3
Died: 1921
Died: March 29
Essayist
Naturalist
Writer
Delaware County
New York
Keen
Curiosity
Joy
Religion
Universe
Science

More quotes by John Burroughs

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I am in love with this world . . . I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.
John Burroughs
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Natural history is a matter of observation it is a harvest which you gather when and where you find it growing. Birds and squirrels and flowers are not always in season, but philosophy we have always with us. It is a crop which we can grow and reap at all times and in all places and it has its own value and brings its own satisfaction.
John Burroughs
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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.
John Burroughs
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The honey-bee's great ambition is to be rich, to lay up great stores, to possess the sweet of every flower that blooms. She is more than provident. Enough will not satisfy her, she must have all she can get by hook or crook.
John Burroughs
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The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.
John Burroughs
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[T]he cold warms me—after a different fashion from that of the kitchen stove.
John Burroughs
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Love is the measure of life only so far as we love do we really live.
John Burroughs
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The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.
John Burroughs
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Nature exists for man no more than she does for monkeys, and is as regardless of his life or pleasure or success as she is of the fleas. Her waves will drown him, her fire burn him, and her earth devour him, her storms and lightning smite him, as if he were only a dog.
John Burroughs
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Without death and decay, how could life go on?
John Burroughs
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Nature comes home to one most when one is at home. The stranger and traveler finds her a stranger and traveler also.
John Burroughs
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The art of nature is all in the direction of concealment.
John Burroughs
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Happiness comes most to persons who seek it least and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought, it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it.
John Burroughs
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Temperament lies behind mood behind will, lies the fate of character. Then behind both, the influence of family the tyranny of culture and finally the power of climate and environment and we are free, only to the extent we rise above these.
John Burroughs
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I still find each day too short.
John Burroughs
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Look underfoot. You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don't despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world.
John Burroughs
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I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to vegetation. My very thoughts become thirsty, and crave the moisture.
John Burroughs
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In what bold relief stand out the lives of all walkers of the snow! The snow is a great tell-tale, and blabs as effectually as it obliterates. I go into the woods, and know all that has happened. I cross the fields, and if only a mouse has visited his neighbor, the fact is chronicled.
John Burroughs
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A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.
John Burroughs
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How much there is in books that one does not want to know, that it would be a mere weariness and burden to the spirit to know.
John Burroughs