Quote

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.

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
Book
Make
Nectar
Bees
Honey
Flower
Goes
Books
Nature

More quotes by John Burroughs

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The gift of perfume to a flower is a special grace like genius or like beauty, and never becomes common or cheap.
John Burroughs
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There is a condition or circumstance that has a greater bearing upon the happiness of life than any other. What is it? Something to do some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all people and what a wretched world it would be.
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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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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Without death and decay, how could life go on?
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.
John Burroughs
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Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.
John Burroughs
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Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.
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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Then, again, how annoying to be told it is only five miles to the next place when it is really eight or ten!
John Burroughs
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There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad.
John Burroughs
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Time does not become sacred to us until we have lived it.
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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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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I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
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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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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Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.
John Burroughs
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One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.
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