Quote

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.

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
Either
Moments
Hands
Head
Draughts
Work
Open
Chimney
Something
Secret
Draught
Literature
Chimneys
Happiness
Discovered
Happy
Draws
Moment

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The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.
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The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.
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He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.
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One goes to Nature only for hints and half-truths. Her facts are crude until you have absorbed them or translated them ... It is not so much what we see as what the thing seen suggests.
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A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
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Almost all of the governments have agreed that they will not acquire nuclear weapons and that they will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor their commercial and research nuclear power operations to ensure that nuclear materials - highly enriched uranium and plutonium - are not diverted to use in weapons.
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Few persons realize how much of their happiness, such as it is, is dependent upon their work.
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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.
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One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after all, are the weeds.
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My group, the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, was one of the principle organizers. So, there was this campaign to support the United Nations General Assembly in asking the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the legality of threat or use of nuclear weapons.
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One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.
John Burroughs
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The bluebird enjoys the preeminence of being the first bit of color that cheers our northern landscape. The other birds that arrive about the same time--the sparrow, the robin, the phoebe-bird--are clad in neutral tints, gray, brown, or russet but the bluebird brings one of the primary hues and the divinest of them all.
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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.
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Without death and decay, how could life go on?
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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.
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If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature.
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Love is the measure of life only so far as we love do we really live.
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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.
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Some men are like nails, very easily drawn others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
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A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.
John Burroughs