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The secret of happiness is something to do.

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
Happiness
Something
Secret

More quotes by John Burroughs

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The place to observe nature is where you are.
John Burroughs
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A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.
John Burroughs
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Some men are like nails, very easily drawn others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.
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
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What a severe yet master artist old Winter is... No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel.
John Burroughs
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A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
John Burroughs
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Look up at the miracle of the falling snow,—the air a dizzy maze of whirling, eddying flakes, noiselessly transforming the world, the exquisite crystals dropping in ditch and gutter, and disguising in the same suit of spotless livery all objects upon which they fall.
John Burroughs
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The deeper our insight into the methods of nature . . . the more incredible the popular Christianity seems to us.
John Burroughs
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In the order of nature we may behold the ways of the Eternal.
John Burroughs
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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.
John Burroughs
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To find the universal elements enough to find the air and the water exhilarating to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
John Burroughs
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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.
John Burroughs
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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.
John Burroughs
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The art of nature is all in the direction of concealment.
John Burroughs
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All sounds are sharper in winter the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke down its sides but in winter always the same low, sullen growl.
John Burroughs
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The countries outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty also are bound by that obligation [ Article Six of the treaty] according to, at least it's a strong implication of, a 1996 opinion of the International Court of Justice.
John Burroughs
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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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[Theodore Roosevelt] was a naturalist on the broadest grounds, uniting much technical knowledge with knowledge of the daily lives and habits of all forms of wild life. He probably knew tenfold more natural history than all the presidents who had preceded him, and, I think one is safe in saying, more human history also.
John Burroughs
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Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.
John Burroughs
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....success in walking is not to let your right foot know what your left foot doeth. Your heart must furnish such music that in keeping time to it your feet will carry you around the globe without knowing it.
John Burroughs